NIJT 2013 Live Blog
NIJT Final Notes
Joventut ran past Barcelona 82-59 in the title game.
Joventut played a flawless team game, attacking in transition before flowing into a simple, efficient half court offense if no solution was found.
Alberto Abalde had 18 points and 9 rebounds in a game that accurately reflected his full-tournament performance. Abalde can slash, has good ballhandling for a 3/2, court vision, three point shooting and defended aggressively against the likes of Mario Hezonja and Marc Garcia, as well as small backcourt players.
Hezonja made a surprise return but continued to rely on off-the-dribble jump shots, as he did most of the season both on junior and pro level. Barca played better team game on both ends of the floor with Hezonja out.
Joventut’s success again had many different pillars: Augusti Sans is making a late surge for all-tournament team following another fantastic allround outing – 14 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, zero turnovers – while opportunistic scoring forward Jose Nogues had 13 and 7. Explosive playmaker Xavier Assalit wowed the crowd with a couple of spectacular moves to the basket.
Marc Garcia had a super game for Barca again, finishing with 18 points.
sJacas, 12/05/2013
NIJT Day III Notes
Team China vs Joventut Badalona 62-75
Did not attend, but Joventut keep marching on. They’ve won each of their three games in double digit margins.
Alberto Abalde is making a strong case for tournament MVP, finishing with 16 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals in a little over 27 minutes.
Jose Nogues had 21 points; Agusti Sans had by far the best game of his tournament, with 19 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists. This has been the story of this Joventut team anyway: they’re incredibly balanced. Abalde and Nogues are arguably their two best players, but among the guards everyone can chip in for a 15 point game.
Crvena Zvezda vs Lietuvos Rytas 73-54
The Serbs, in an essentially meaningless game, had little trouble disposing of a fairly underwhelming Lietuvos Rytas. Rytas finished the tournament with final scores of 65, 57 and 54 points.
Arguably the tournament’s best long range shooter (though Barcelona’s Marc Garcia may disagree), Brano Djukanovic (192cm, SG) led Red Star with 19 points including 5/7 from distance. Djukanovic can catch-and-shoot but also attack the close-out and pull up from free throw line distance.
Small forward Marko Guduric finished the tournament with a solid 12, 7 and 3 that reflect his pre-London performance.
FC Barcelona Regal vs INSEP 74-55
This Barca team has held opponents to 58 (England), 49 (Sarajevo) and 55 (INSEP) points. The 4/5s Adria Cantenys and Milovan Draskovic are each averaging around 2 blocked shots a game. Opponents have shown little initiative trying to exploit PG Pau Cami‘s 161cm frame. Barca themselves have shown to be far better prepared than their opponents, giving non-shooting guards the Victor Sada treatment, et cetera.
Despite the outstanding play of MVP candidate Marc Garcia (21 points in 28 1/2 minutes yesterday, including 10 trips to the foul line), this has been a team effort for Barca ever since Mario Hezonja limped out of game 2. Hezonja played 32 minutes this tournament, where he had strong allround numbers of 8 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists, but also 7 turnovers and 3/15 shooting. Hezonja is a high-usage on-ball player where Garcia is more an off-ball, off-the-screen shooter.
Damien Inglis had an utterly disappointing tournament, but this was his best showing. Finished with 15 points and 9 rebounds.
The all-Catalan final will be played at 12:00 local time in the NIJT, streamed live on Euroleague.net and Lietuvos Rytas TV.
Team England vs Spars Sarajevo 78-61
Along with the play of Joventut Badalona, Team England have been this tournament’s positive surprise. Despite posting underwhelming shooting numbers, combo guard Luke Nelson has been huge for them, shouldering the scoring responsibility on a team that lacked in shot creation.
For Sarajevo it was a fitting end to a tournament where their big three (Salic, Buza, Nikolic) were unable to carry them for the full length of 40 minutes. The trio has inflated numbers due to the extended minutes they play compared to other top players, but more on that in the tournament round up.
Till later.
sJacas, 12/05/2013
NIJT Day II Notes
Lietuvos Ryttas vs Team China 57-66
Lietuvos Rytas continued their poor play while Team China put up a solid performance after standing no chance against Red Star on Thursday. Having more than 7 players (9 this time) at your disposal, including a strong inside player, helps.
China got a dominating 22 and 10 (and 3 blocks) from big man Xu Yufeng against Rytas’ soft front line. Where Red Star had bossed the paint against the Chinese, Rytas failed to make shots, going 15 for 43 from 2 point range. It was Xu’s first tournament performance (he did not play in the opener) but he’ll be facing a more serious test early Saturday against Joventut’s solid interior.
Rytas’ execution was incredibly poor against the Chinese zone; the Lithuanians only started to generate ball movement when 2nd PG Deividas Kumelis (17 points) subbed in to take care of the offense.
Joventut Badalona vs Crvena Zvezda 77-67
2013 Joventut is to London what 2012 Rytas was to Istanbul.
The Spaniards are executing on a fantastic level as a team. They’re having depth, balanced playmaking (ballhandling abilities on positions 1-3, that is) and play super active team defense, which allowed them to outplay an individually superior Red Star team.
Alberto Abalde had another fantastic performance, finishing with 16 points (5/5 for 2, 2/4 for 3) and 6 rebounds. Abalde has legit Euroleague small forward height (the minute-weighted SF height average this EL season is 197.7cm) and was defending positions 1 to 3 yesterday. Abalde is handling the ball a lot on offense as one of his team’s key shot creators. Had a drive along the baseline for a spectacular flying reverse layup in the 1st half.
Joventut got a super performance, too, from point guard Xavier Assalit (188cm, 17.9yrs). Assalit played lock down defense all game, which goes in line with his strong defensive profile from Hospitalet, where he posted elite steals and blocks numbers in point guard context – hardly a proper measure of defensive performance, but an indicator for length and athletic ability. Assalit also got to the foul line 15 times to finish as Joventut’s top scorer, with 17 points. He does, however, lack a 3 point shot at this point and his assist numbers are consistently low in point guard context.
Red Star’s long and talented Marko Tejic/Dusan Ristic front line failed to produce. Although Ristic finished with 12 points on 6 for 9 shooting, he failed to rebound the ball and had difficulties dealing with Joventut’s lighting quick double teams that were coming all the way from the weak side corner. Tejic finished with 1 for 9 shooting.
Spars Sarajevo vs FC Barcelona Regal 49-53
This one was interesting – largely due to Doko Salic‘s truly terrible performance against a Barcelona defense that lacked a strong body but crowded Salic with two help defenders on every catch. Salic finished with 16 rebounds (6/10) but went just 5 for 15 from the field and had 7 turnovers in 40 minutes. Salic forced shots against triple teams that missed the rim entirely, but even more concerning were his poor screening (if at all), complete failure to box out on the boards and generally poor defensive performance. This was more Kasun than Pekovic.
The rest of Sarajevo’s big three (playmaker Aleksej Nikolic and forward Nedim Buza) played 40 and 38 minutes, respectively. Buza had 14 and 12.
Mario Hezonja limped out in the 2nd quarter with what looked like a sprained ankle, opening up space for Marc Garcia, a standout already for the Spanish under-16 team last summer, to showcase his magnificent shooting skills (21 points, 3/5 from 3). Garcia is incredibly smooth and scores most of his points on jump shots: catch-and-shoot coming off the baseline screen, or a quick one-dribble pull-up. His Nowitzki-ish ability to keep the ball up high on the catch-and-shoot – instead of taking it down and back up again – buys him valuable time versus the close out.
Barcelona got 10 rebounds and 5 blocked shots from Adria Cantenys and 10 rebounds and 3 blocks from Milovan Draskovic. Both play well above the rim.
INSEP vs Team England 79-75 OT
Did not watch this one, but it appears Damien Inglis disappointed yet again – this time finishing with 6 points on 2/11, and 8 turnovers.
Big man Ywen Smock (203cm), one of the youngest players in the tournament at just 16.6 years of age, finished with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 6 blocked shots.
Despite the absence of automatisms due to the limited time Team England had spent together prior to this tournament, the British are no pushovers. They’re playing their hearts out and are getting plenty of activity from playmaker Luke Nelson, who had 16 points, 8 assists and 6 turnovers.
sJacas, 11/05/2013
NIJT Day I Notes
Lietuvos Rytas vs Joventut Badalona 65-77
Joventut took this one over an out-of-sync Rytas team, at least when compared to last year’s finely-oiled machine that took home the title in Istanbul.
Multitalented PF Jose Nogues (11 points, 7 rebounds) is the star of this Joventut team, but it was 17.4 year old SG Alberto Abalde (195-198cm, depends where you’re looking) who stole the show with 21 points, four rebounds and plenty of quality decision-making. Abalde had shot just 44.1 eFG% in the Hospitalet tournament, including 9 for 27 from two point range. He’s long, a quality ballhandler, did not hesitate to attack the basket off the bounce and has a sweet stroke from long range … that, at least, was consistent with his rest-of-the-season data.
Rytas’ mobile, long, versatile 4/5 (played both positions today) Gediminas Zalalis had 14 points. Had caught my eye by posting pretty good assist numbers (>11 AST%) for a PF/C prior to this tournament.
Team China vs Crvena Zvezda 61-86
This one was never in danger. Red Star played with two bigs (Tejic and Ristic) most of their minutes and those trees just dominated a short (in height and depth – they had just seven players available) Chinese selection at will inside.
Dusan Ristic (207cm, C) had little trouble finishing baby hooks with either hand against an outmatched Chinese front line but what he did impress with, was his passing game; Ristic found cutters with perfect timing for lay-ups.
Their 3, Marko Guduric (196cm), continued his strong allround play with 10 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists, but had careless turnovers and an argument with his coach on his down side.
For Team China, national team player Heng Yifeng showed glimpses of quality in the absence of volume scorer Gao Shang, who had stood out of the Chinese selection in last year’s tournament.
INSEP vs Spars Sarajevo 57-76
An intense first half brought a so-so outing from INSEP small forward Damien Inglis and a dominating 23/9 performance from Sarajevo center Doko Salic. Salic’s similarity scores indicate a Mario Kasun-ish game (minus the fouls) and that’s what he brought today, crashing the offensive glass and outmuscling opponents in the post, never showing the same type of intensity, however, on the defensive end.
Inglis, with his “pro” body, looks literally like a man amongst boys out there, but had a quiet outing after a trio of near triple-doubles in the Belgrade tournament. This is what his profile had looked like thus far …
Salic had fantastic support from Nedim Buza (17/11) and Aleksej Nikolic (18/8/9) who had a near triple double. Sarajevo are playing key players extended minutes, with 3 players netting more than 36 minutes today.
FC Barcelona Regal vs Team England 69-58
An incredibly poor outing from Barca in general and Mario Hezonja in particular. No need to say more.
sJacas, 09/05/2013
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