in-the-game.org

European Basketball Analysis

Players | Teams | Game List in the Stats Database

Euroleague Top16 Week #1 Notes

with 21 comments

Top16 is a different kind of animal.

As far as I am concerned, this is where the competition reaches its pinnacle in entertainment. There is no possession to not play hard since point differential can very well be crucial in pushing you to the quarter finals, if possible, with home court advantage. I found the draw disappointing for a lack of rivalries, but watching four games on Wednesday and Thursday was a quick reminder of why the matchups don’t really matter: There is way too much at stake and way too little margin for error. Whoever is going in unprepared is going to be eaten alive. See Milano.

Unics-Fenerbahce

Unics vs Fenerbahce was an unorthodox clash. Fener took a 41-24 half time lead via a 18-3 run in the 5:48min-lasting presence of Kaya Peker. Peker did not return in the second half, Unics stormed back with a 29-15 third quarter, Fenerbahce lost. No certainty what would have happened had Peker been allowed to put a foot on the floor in the second half, but I fail to understand the reasoning: Why not even try, when you’re conceding a 15-29 third quarter, to go back to a lineup that produced such outrageously good numbers?

Pashutin did the exact opposite, playing a lineup of Samoylenko (who had a Euroleague/EuroCup career high – and he’s had a long career – of 16 points and 10 assists), Lyday, Domercant (11 fourth quarter points), Wilkinson and Veremeenko for practically the full second half. Just pause for a second and admire the defensive effort – Fener scored just 30 points in the second half – these guys showed.

Defense is the name of their game anyway. Prior to Top16, Unics was second behind Barça in defensive efficiency. We have to mention strength of schedule as an influence (in whatever direction), but they remain a fine defensive team.

Olympiakos-CSKA

Read Aito Reneses’ Oly-CSKA analysis over at Euroleague.net and thought this scene is a great example of CSKA’s passing quality. They set screens along the baseline and once in a while the passer will hit the screener instead of the guy who they screen for.

Khryapa’s highpost passing is crucial anyway you look at it. The guy is slightly turnover prone but has hit Krstic alone for 14 assists this season.

If you chart CSKA games Synergy-style for offensive tendencies, you’ll be left, apart from pick and rolls, baseline runners, isolations (inkl. post up), with a high number of “other” situations being finished by either shot attempt or turnover. That’s because they break out of their sets so often. Khryapa deserves a special mention here with his drives from top of the key.

Šiškauskas is such a nice offensive option to have. Šiška is playing 34.4 percent of his minutes at shooting guard this season, a number that will only increase now that Kirilenko is back. That’s a tough matchup for many teams in a league where playing with two point guards has become a status quo. CSKA’s most-used lineup (Teodosic, Šiškauskas, Kirilenko, Khryapa, Krstic) has great height at shooting guard and small forward, miles above league average.

Zalgiris-Maccabi

Any form of Zalgiris defense was badly missed in the first half, when the scoring-potent Mallet-Langford tandem combined for 19 points and Eliyahu, Sofo and Hendrix did huge damage inside with their post play. Post play, that includes passing out of the double team. Zalgiris was usually quick to double but for whatever reason were slow to help the help, which led to simple baskets for Eliyahu in particular.

We have a lot of talent in this team, but you cannot win with just talent.

Aleksandar Trifunovic didn’t like the defensive effort.

The thing about Maccabi is their lack of conventional playmaking. Langford and Mallet didn’t score before Mallet bailed them out of yet another messed up possession with a long triple. I’m not sure whether this will become a major problem – Blatt’s teams have seldom been conventional, after all – but they certainly weren’t creating good looks for most of the second half. Thank god for Blu’s fadeaways and Sofo’s post game during this span.

Langford eventually picked his game up and iced the contest with a layup around Rakovic and a three-shot-foul drawn on Collins on two isolations deep in crunch time. Equally crucial: his defense on Weems. Held the Zalgiris topscorer to two points, 1/8 field goals, six turnovers.

Unicaja-Real

I am bummed about this loss.

Chus Mateo is bummed about this loss.

Luka Zoric must have had an outrageously good game for Unicaja, finishing with 32 and 10. But then Nikola Mirotic tiptoed around Garbajosa and Peric with two, three, four steps and banked in the game winner with the deftest of touches with 0.6 seconds left.

I can see why he’s bummed.

Milano-Panathinaikos

This was a defensive clinic in the first half. Tsartsaris (length, strength, isolation defense) and Perperoglou (long arms in the passing lanes) are adding a lot to this team. The guard tandem Calathes/Diamantidis is tremendously active off the ball. I think Diamantidis is more vulnerable on the ball the older he gets, but his off-ball-activity and – not to underestimate – the way he communicates defense are still top notch.

Scariolo went with a tall starting five including Mancinelli at the three. Obradovic countered with Perperoglou at the three and Sato at the two. Sato played 13 of his team-high 25 minutes at shooting guard and provided great defense + offensive rebounding.

Except for a lackustre since underchallenged second-half-performance, the only factor for Obradovic to complain about was zone offense. Milano held Panathinaikos scoreless for three and half minutes in the second quarter as they failed to produce open looks against the zone. Then Kaimakoglou went coast to coast for the and one, Sato finished off a broken play and Panathinaikos regained hold of the game with the reinsertion of Diamantidis.

What’s more, Maric (seven rebounds in seven minutes) was beasting on the boards while Nick Calathes still cannot make a shot and is now 9/44 from three for the season in EL & A1 combined.

Loose Notes

My favourite point guard chart helps identifying playmaking mentality: V-Span has clearly dropped to the bottom right “shoot first”-corner more than ever before, close to the spot traditionally reserved for Curtis Jerrells. But Jerrells and Ukic have defied all odds and are now proudly presenting an assist to turnover ratio of over one!

The best slashers out there? Historically, close range field goals per minute (for point guards) is dominated by Americans. This year is no different.

Player Games MIN CRM CRA CR% CRM/28 CRA/28
McCALEBB, BO 8 217 38 45 84.4 4.9 5.8
SPANOULIS, VASSILIS 10 299 28 40 70.0 2.6 3.7
CALATHES, NICK 11 281 25 41 61.0 2.5 4.1
ROWLAND, EARL 9 193 17 29 58.6 2.5 4.2
PAPALOUKAS, THEODOROS 10 112 9 14 64.3 2.3 3.5
LAWSON, TY 7 151 12 22 54.5 2.2 4.1
LAW, ACIE 10 320 24 47 51.1 2.1 4.1
JERRELLS, CURTIS 11 220 15 29 51.7 1.9 3.7
UKIC, ROKO 10 267 18 33 54.5 1.9 3.5
KALNIETIS, MANTAS 11 239 16 26 61.5 1.9 3.0

See you next week.

Written by sJacas

January 20th, 2012 at 8:46 pm

«
»
  • Dimitris Ritsonis

    Well done

    My notes of this day, though, include Teodosic’s assist to Krstic. One more example of his brilliance, in what I see as another day at work for him pass-wise. Likely the highest IQ PG in this world over the past 3-4 years by this aspect 

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas
  • http://twitter.com/The_Real_Ark Fuck yeah

    You are wrong. Mirotic made 14 steps before than shot.

  • Dimitris Ritsonis

    Yes, but this is Euroleague. The competition whose server breaks down only during live matches and then you get the MVP regarding the Fantasy stats, not the real stats on the boxscore

    Happened for the 2nd time this season. It was Mirotic over Teletovic and now Veremeenko over Zoric

  • Milutin

    Not trying to take anything away from Kaya, but it has to be noted that he was on the court during the Bojan Bogdanovic show.
    But, I agree, it’s strange to leave him benched after such an impact…

  • such sweet thunder

    The more I think about it, we — me included — may guilty of hypocrisy in the way we discuss the Mirotic travel. When we see a player shove a guy off the ball to create space in a last-shot situation most people would call it a smart play. Referees rarely blow their whistles in that situation and the advantage gained is usually worth the risk.

    Doesn’t the same go for traveling at the end of games? I think I’ve seen three or four travels that were not called this week, counting NBA games, in last shot situations. The reason the plays were not whistled is that bodies are flying everywhere, player movement is more awkward, and no ref wants to be the guy who ends a game with an incorrect whistle. What percentage of referee crews make the call on Mirotic? Is it 10%? Is it less than that?

    What makes an end of game push off a smart play while an end of game travel is a lucky play?

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    Nothing! Technically it looks like a travel to me, but that doesn’t mean it can be expected to be called. Out of 100 refs, how many make the traveling call here? Zero, probably.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    By the way, if we want to recap this week of basketball, there’s another discussion point: The NBA GM survery. This was entertaining.

    Obviously, 36 percent of NBA GMs who answered the question think that Jonas Valanciunas is currently the best player outside the NBA. One of them thinks it’s Furkan Aldemir.

    “Who is the best international player NOT in the NBA?
    1. Jonas Valanciunas — 36.0%
    2. Juan Carlos Navarro — 32.0% 3. Andrei Kirilenko — 20.0%

    Also receiving votes: Furkan Aldemir, Mirza Teletovic, Milos Teodosic

    Last year: Ricky Rubio — 42.3%”

    Two options:
    1) They don’t know better
    2) They misunderstood the question

    Anyway, who are yours?

  • Zur

    Hell that was hilarious. or should i say outrageous. i dont think Jonas would make it even to the top 20. wait, if it includes US natives, he wouldnt make it to the top 50.
    we should make a list…
    anyway, top 5 is definetly with La Bomba and AK47, at least they got that one… Furkan Aldemir??!?! i realy wanna find out who picked him out.

  • Milutin

    From the top of my head, I’d probably chose someone from: AK, DD, JCN, Bo… (maybe even Mirza, Lorbek…)
    Who am I kidding, it’s Vspan, obviously…

    About the options you’ve offered:
    I’m for option #2 (“They misunderstood the question”), because I can’t accept option #1 (“They don’t know better”).
    There might be a third option: They didn’t bother much about answering the question…
    Although I’m sticking with #2
     

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    I don’t think every GM is a euroball expert. They all have their guys here or use scouting services. But in general the survey results can’t be surprising if you look at draft and free agent history of the last decade. There’s plenty of room for optimisation.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    Kirilenko at first spot, then Navarro and Diamantidis are obvious choices, partly for the level they still play at, partly for the successes they’ve had in the past.

    We’re always too slow to accept new faces. I’ll just put my positional top five out there, in no particular order.

    PG
    Diamantidis
    Teodosic
    McCalebb
    Huertas
    Spanoulis (?)
    N.Calathes (?)

    SG
    Navarro
    Shved
    Langford
    Carroll (?)
    Perkins (?) (if fit, if considered shooting guard … he’s a 1/2)

    SF
    Kirilenko
    Eidson
    Kinsey (definitely)
    Siskauskas (still? I think he’s formidable)
    Hairston (?)
    Mickeal (?)
    Weems (?)

    I would love to write Preldzic here, but he’s not delivering. Now that I write those names down, the good European small forwards are all going overseas, aren’t they.

    PF
    Lorbek
    Mirotic
    Khryapa
    Freeland (?)
    Macvan (?)
    Teletovic (?)
    Eliyahu (?)
    Fotsis (?)
    Savanovic (?)

    C
    Krstic
    Big Sofo
    Bourousis (off the radar a bit since he’s playing for such a dysfunctional team)
    Batiste (?)
    Paul Davis (?)
    Tomic/Begic(?)
    N’Dong (?) (Not conventional wisdom, eh. Have a bit a crush on N’Dong. I know he’s not a complete center. But a perfect defender.)

  • such sweet thunder

    Two other likely options:

    3) The GMs didn’t take the survey: GMs may have handed the survey off to an assistant, who handed it off to an intern, who spent three minutes looking up the “answers” online.

    4) The GMs are lying: This question was unique on the survey because it asked GMs to reveal proprietary information if they interpreted the question as asking for the best European prospect for joining the NBA, which apparently some of them did.

    As an aside, have you guys checked in on Valanciunas lately? His game is starting to gel, and it looks to me at least like he’s made relatively big strides over the past couple of months. It should go without saying that he’s not in a discussion about the best internationals not in the NBA — he’s basically showboating on a team, Rytas, that’s so bad they could make me dislike basketball. But I’ll bet Toronto is pretty happy.

  • http://twitter.com/robscott33 Rob Scott

    Paul Davis is balling for Cajasol. Would not be at all surprised to see one of the big clubs snapping him up for next season, though his defense isn’t great. Would be nice to see him play at the highest level in Europe but then again it’d be a shame to see him buried in a deep rotation, which is a risk.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    This season may be a blessing in disguise for Jonas.

    Last season he made huge profit off of playing with strong pick and roll guards. The large majority of his baskets was assisted, hence his high field goal percentage and hyper-efficient per minute stats. (The other part of that was rebounding).

    This season he’s playing with Tyrese Rice as the main ballhandler, good scorer but continously ignores the roll man. He’s having to work for his shot more and that seems to pay off recently. There’s no reason he can’t be a good lowpost player. He showed glimpses of that in the U19 tournament, but against far inferior competition.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    “Would be nice to see him play at the highest level in Europe but then
    again it’d be a shame to see him buried in a deep rotation, which is a
    risk.”

    That is true and kind of the ultimate blessing/problem of European basketball.

    On the one hand we love the super teams go head to head and play 40 minutes of otherwordly intensity, thanks to their roster depth.

    On the other hand, send a Real Madrid bench warmer like Velickovic back to Partizan and he’s a key player and one of the many faces of the competiton. The list goes on. I surely like the competition as it is now, but every coin has two sides.

    Anyway, I like Davis’ a lot. Has been the ACB’s statistically most effective player ahead of Gustavo Ayon in each of the last two seasons.

  • V.

    My top10 by position would go like this:

    1. Diamantidis( best PG without question and unique in many ways)
        Spanoulis   ( or MacCalebb? That’s the big dilemma for me).

    2. Navarro  (obviously)
        Langford(the best behind Navarro right now)

    3. Kirilenko(monster)
        Eidson  (better than Kinsey for sure Mr. SJ)  :)

    4. Teletovic(despite Caja’s poor regular season, he has made miracles)
        Khryapa(Only Kirilenko and Diamantidis overmatch in his quality at both ends of the floor)

    5. Krstic           (regular season MVP in my opinion)
        Schortsanitis(Bourousis and Batiste are just after, the rest you mentioned SJ are way behind i think)

    I had more expectations from David Andersen this year. Let’s hope he elevates his performance from now on where the crucial games are.
    I also think that an underrated player that could be in top10 guards in Europe is Jamont Gordon. Obviously he has his issues and i don’t know, perhaps i think he is better than he actually is, but generally in my opinion he is underrated.

  • CT42

    They misunderstood obviously as player who will come to NBA in the future. On the other hand, just few GMs have idea about what’s really going on out there, for example Spurs. As they generally don’t know about the game here, their best player understanding heavily depended on the player who performed well against team USA, for instance Papas was the answer few years ago.

  • Pingback: Euroleague Preview: Reyes to the Rescue

  • such sweet thunder

    I have a tough time with your selection of Kristic as best center. I can’t help but feel that CSKA may be a more complete team with a Begic or N’Dong type manning the paint. Kristic’s skills and basketball smarts are undeniable but if CSKA loses, which looks like a hell of an if right now, the opposing team is going to drop between 80 and 100 on them. I suppose that’s not really a counter argument to Kristic being the best center, more of an argument that, given CSKA’s scoring prowess, another center may be better on their roster.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    I’m not sure Krstic is the top center either. (You probably missed the “in no particular order”.)

    CSKA is creating so many easy baskets through Teodosic, Khryapa and Kirilenko, that Krstic is getting plenty of great looks inside. Put him on a team where he has to work harder for his own shot and things will look differently. Nevertheless, there’s not much to complain about his performance so far.

    Would be interesting to see CSKA with a shotblocking presence like Begic or N’Dong.