My Euroleague Wednesday

When I came home tonight, I immediately checked on the situation in the different Euroleague games was. And it looked like the two first games of the day would become blowouts: Olympiacos finally beat Air Avellino without any trouble, but the score between Panionios and Real Madrid somehow surprised me as the Greeks were up by like 20 points. A quick check on Skype gave me the explication, Panionios had a 31-6 run.

But the second half of the game gave us a fantastic opportunity to see a nice scoring run, as Real Madrid made an incredible 31-5 run in order to get as close as two points in the last two minutes. Despite the big trouble the Euroleague TV commentator had in pronouncing the Greek names, we had a real nail-biter in the final seconds. And it was Aaron Miles with two very bad decisions against the Real Madrid zone that gave Real Madrid the possibility to lead for the first time in the second half. The momentum switch was really tangible through the DSL lines. But a super stupid foul by Alex Mumbru gave a two-point lead back to Panionios with two free throws, but Marko Tomas had to step to the line after a Partizan-CSKA final-second possession and he made both. But the aforementioned Miles was the game winner with an “easy layup” according to the commentator after a full-court run.

Speaking of close games, I switched to Le Mans for their game against Le Mans with Alain “Coffee” Koffi on the jump ball. So I preferred to turn down the sound of EL.TV and put Pionir on full power on RTS Sat despite not understanding a word of the probably very interesting Serbian announcers. Le Mans came off a really bad start and trailed 23-11 after the first quarter while Serbian TV had problems with the sound and the graphics, as the Grobari were probably jumping on the cables.

A very interesting call happened in the meantime in Belgrade, where Kaya Peker got an offensive foul for pushing Stephane Lasme’s arm away on a layup attempt. This is a very common call in the United States but is hardly every seen in Europe, especially if it happens in the no-offensive-foul call zone of the half-circle. At the same time, Pape Badiane scores for Unicaja on a Enzo Tsonga assist according to the commentator. (NB.: both are players of Le Mans) I have to add that I really like EL.TV but these are incredible errors, especially if you mess up player names four times in two minutes.

In Le Mans, we have halftime and the game between AJ Milano and CSKA Moscow seems already decided after eight minutes, when the Russians lead 21-5 in the once again half-empty Datchforum in Milan. IN addition to all the trouble, there seems to be a general sound problem with Euroleague games tonight as now even the EL.TV commentators have shut up and no sound from the arenas is coming out of my speakers. Watching basketball without sound is really strange — kinda like Sarunas Jasikevicius without the talking. Oh, it’s halftime in Belgrade on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Charles Smith (1m95) over Slavko Vranes (2m29).

And during halftime, it is time for a little off-topic. On the Serbian RTS Sat channel, the break is used for advertising by travel agencies in Switzerland and German cell phone companies. Globalization! On the other hand, I just read that the Bundesliga team LTi Giessen 46ers signed a new manager in Vladi Bogojevic. Nothing special, you may think, but knowing the difficult financial situation of the German team, GM Christoph Syring told the press: I really believe that much in Vladi’s abilities, that I have accepted a reduction to my own salary. You must be kidding me…

While I was writing this off-topic, Unicaja has already increased their lead to 18 and we will have another blowout win very probably tonight as now, even Boniface N’Dong hits a three pointer after a multitude of dunks to close a 19-2 run in the last quarter. This is really a pity to watch the French team right now where only Alain Koffi seems to be concerned.

So it’s time to move to Milan, where Armani Jeans is coming back in the race as they start the second half on an 11-2 run to be at only eight points down. But that’s the moment for EL.TV blocks the stream for whatever reason. In Belgrade, Partizan is still holding their advantage so it looks like Milano is the place to be to see some exciting action tonight. And it seems also to be the night of the interesting referee decisions as one of the three refs gets caught with the new backcourt rules and calls a violation to AJ Milano but immediately takes it back as he was wrong. By the way, has anybody mentioned that Piero Bucchi is as always the best dressed head coach of the Euroleague? Well, it may be no surprise when you are sponsored by Armani Jeans.

In the meantime, Novica Velcikovic decides the game in Belgrade for another win of Partizan against Efes Pilsen despite some late second turnovers by Uros Tripkovic.  David Hawkins however scores a very big bucket to give Milano a four-point lead with three minutes to go. As I said beforehand in David Hein’s Live Blog, I see AJ Milano having a chance beating CSKA but I really didn’t believe in my words after the first minutes of the game. (OT: I just got outbid on an Ebay auction, damn…)

As incredible as my loss in the Ebay auction is, the fact that Victor Khryapa may become the game winner in Milan with a big time steal to open the final minute. But it is David Hawkins who brings AJ Milano back in front with two very tough shots over the former Chicago Bull. And the impossible happens, as Ramunas Siskauskas loses the ball and the win five seconds before the buzzer, with AJ Milano (as predicted) winning over the heretofore unbeaten Russian team.

What a great ending to my Euroleague Wednesday!

Yarone’s Friday’s joints

Sofoklis Schortsianitis (Olympiacos) – No shot attempts at all and only one foul in 7:42 minutes. Only once before has Schortsianitis finished a Euroleague game without a single shot attempt and that was when he played only two minutes.

Milos Teodosic (Olympiacos) – How often did you get to see this Serbian scorer finish with zero three-point attempts in 14:40? It happened once last season. If this were to continue this season, it would mean Yannakis is turning the kid from a scoring machine into a true team player. Keep an eye out.

Loren Woods (Zalgiris) set a Euroleague career high with 17 points and nine defensive rebounds against Pao, who have one of the best front lines in Europe.

Tamar Slay (Avelino) had his Euroleague debut as well against a Greek team, but we won’t mention this game on his resume, with his 1-of-10 from the field and -11 VAL.

Marcus Brown (Maccabi) – On Monday, Brown took two flights to arrive in Tel Aviv in the afternoon from Kaunas. The following day, he took two more flights to get from Tel Aviv to Zagreb with his new team. In total, Brown has probably had more flights than practices with his new team. Nevertheless, he played 27:44.

Willie Deans (Zalgiris) - In his Euroleague debut, Deans finished 1-of-10 from the field and -9 VAL against Pao.

Tau Ceramica Vitoria (ACB) used the shortest rotation this week with only eight players. Efes used nine, with one player on the floor for just 22 seconds. All other teams used between nine and 12 players

Rawle Marshall (Cibona) – Simply fun to watch. 20 points, 5-of-9 from the field, 3 rebounds, 3 steals, zero turnovers, 7 fouls drawn, and 29 VAL in a Euroleague debut. All cold numbers. Bottom line: Simply fun to watch.

Dimitris Diamantidis (Panathinaikos) – The best defender award winner for the past four years and one of the top three ball stealers on The Continent played 25:42 against Zalgiris with zero steals.

Dewarick Spencer & David Bluthenthal (Le Mans) – Now this could be a weekly check: Which of these two took more shots for his team? This time, Bluth wins 14-13 and also scores better accuracy.

Theodoros Papaloukas (Olympiacos) - 2,380 days have passed between 18/04/02 and today. Back then, Theo played his last Euroleague game for the Reds; yesterday, he made his rdappearance. Back then, he finished the game with 26:53 in playing time, 8 points, 3 rebounds and a VAL of 16. Today, he played only 90 seconds less, still scored 8 points, still grabbed 3 rebounds, and notched a VAL of 15 …consistency over a six-year span.

Avelino (LEGA) – In its Euroleague debut, the small Italian team registered a VAL of 36. Often this is less than the best weekly VAL from a single player.

Armani Jeans Milano (LEGA) – The game at Moscow was far from Milano’s Euroleague debut but under the new hat and management, expectations were different. Just like Avelino, another Italian team finished a game against a Final Four contender with a poor VAL rating of 36.

Tau (ACB) and Fenerbahce (TBL) combined for 52 attempts from long range on a night on which neither surpassed 30%.

Drew Nicholas (Panathinaikos) – After three seasons in a row over 40% from long range, the US shooter started his career in green with an 0-for-3 performance from long range.

Juan Carlos Navarro (Barcelona) – La Bomba bombed on the NBA runnerups 34 points less than a week ago. Last night, against SLUC Nancy empire, Navarro celebrated his return to the Euroleague with only four points and 1-of-8 from the field.

Derrick Sharp (Maccabi) – The veteran didn’t play a single second the entire game in Zagreb. The last time a Maccabi coach chose not to use Derrick was on 6 January 2000. After a 195-game streak and 3,213 days, a new count begins. Back then, in the first week of the millennium, Maccabi was just 1-of-6 from long range. Last night they showed a poor 4-or-16. Whether that’s a coincidence or not, you be the judge.

Oguz Savas (Fenerbahce) – The Turkish center is a decent rebounder, sometimes even more, but in Vitoria spent more than 23 minutes on the court and finished without a single rebound. This happened to Savas only once all of last season and back then, he played only five minutes.

Milos Vujanic (Efes) is officially back. The Serbian point guard beat his former team by a single point and was his team’s top scorer with 17 and just a single missed shot. The last time Vujanic scored more than 17 in a Euroleague game was on 9 March 2005 (that’s 1,324 days if you’re curious), when his Fortitudo Bologna won at Zalgiris by a single point as well and Vujanic had 18.

Real Madrid (ACB) – No fewer than eight players wrote a double-digit VAL in the 21-point cruise to victory against Olimpija.

Ibrahim Jabber, Ray Allan, Rodrigo De La Fuente, Brandon Jennings and Sanice Becirovic (Roma) – Coach Repesa’s backcourt combined for 4-of-18 inside the arc against Alba.

Nana Mensah-Bonsu (Joventut) had a very busy night under both baskets. Around Joventut’s rim he blocked three shots but on the other end was blocked three times as well. Not many players get to experience such activity on both ends on the floor.

Partizan (YUBA) and Maccabi (BSL) – Both lost by a single basket difference, the smallest margins of the first week, but in both cases it was after a three pointer at the buzzer that only made it look closer than it really was.

Alba (BBL) – No less than 1,723 days, since 4 February 2004, when Alba won their last Euroleague game. It was a 16 point triumph over Efes. John Best, Jovo Stanojevic, Marko Pesic and DeJuan Collins were the top scorers for Alba then. Not a single player on Alba has survived on the team since that season.

Brandon Jennings (Lottomatica) – The most standout number in the game that took Jennings’ Euroleague virginity is his 22 minutes with just a single turnover. Brandon also took nine shots from the field, more than any other Roma player yesterday.

Montepaschi (LEGA) were shooting better outside the arc (48% with 12 made) than inside it (40.5% with 15 made) in the nine-point win over Prokokm.

Boniface Ndong, Marcus Haislip and Robert Archibald (Unicaja) – The team’s three big men were also its three top scorers with 14, 13 and 11 points, respectively, over Le Man’s bigs.

Alain Koffi (Le Mans) – The athletic big man has finished each of his five seasons in the ULEB Cup and Euroleague with seven to nine assists total. On Wednesday night at Unicaja, the local stat guys bestowed him with no less than three, obviously a career high, and a great start to set a new season record as well.

(In case you are too shy to leave a comment here, you can always contact Yarone by sending him an email at arbel@ballineurope.com)

Euroleague: Le Mans, France

Laurent Sallard is one of the main authors of the newly launched website basketnews.net and has a long time experience writing for the Paper version of the French Basketnews magazine. Laurent gives us his view on the 2nd French Euroleague team this season: Le Mans.

Overall record prediction:5-5

This summer, a real French revolution happened in Le mans. Jean-Pierre Goisbault, the long-time president, stepped back. Vincent Collet, the trademark coach of the MSB moved to ASVEL and Nicolas Batum, the most talented player that the club ever brought up, has crossed the Atlantic ocean to play in Portland.

You could expect that the team will struggle or go into a period of transition, without real goals. This won’t be the case. Christophe Le Bouille, who is now the president of the club was the GM for a long time now. JD Jackson, who is a rookie in terms of coaching was the team captain during the MSB championship run in 2006. The two guys are ambitious, want to reconquer the National Championship in France but also improve the results in the Euroleague after only 6 victories in 18 games during the last two years. Additionally, the team has lost its 3 year deal because of the poor results and is only participating to the Euroleague because they finished first of the regular season of the ProA.

To be competitive on the European scene, the team needed some experienced players. That’s why they signed David Bluthenthal who has already several season behind him on this level. The Israeli combo-forward has won the Euroleague with Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2004. Very humble, he declared when he arrived in Le Mans that he wants to become the leader of the team and be a more complete player, also in defense.

Another big name to arrive in Le Mans this summer is Dewarick Spencer. French Champion and MVP of the ProA in 2007 with Chorale de Roanne, he comes of a difficult season with Virtus Bologna and Efes Pilsen and he tries to re-launch his career with the French team.

Brian Chase will play the Point Guard position. Even if his European experience is very limited, he has shown his potential in the NBA and the D-League. The Center JP Batista knows on the other hand the Euroleague because of his season with Lietuvos Rytas before winning the FIBA EuroCup with Barons Riga the last season.

Le Mans has also signed some well known players from the ProA. National Champion together with Dee Spencer in 2007, Pape Badiane played another final with Roanne last summer and had a chance to discover the Euroleague. This has not been the case so far for the Senegalese Maleye N’Doye who is considered as one of the most under-estimated players in the ProA for years.

Finally, Antoine Diot and Alain Koffi are still present. The first one, who will play as a back up of Chase and Spencer, should show some important progress. The second one has perfectly found his role in the group. He grabbed as much as 17 rebounds on the 2nd gameday of the ProA.

The few question marks around the team are the little experience of the head coach and the missing cohesion of the entirely rebuilt group during the summer. But Le Mans has won their first three games of the season showing good control of the game situations in the hot moments. But it will be on the Euroleague court on Wednesday in Malaga that the team has to show its real value.

Final Four participants: Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, CSKA Moscow, Montepaschi Siena

Euroleague winner: CSKA Moscow

written by Laurent Sallard