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Podcast: Interview with Ricky Rubio; wrapping the 2012-13 Euroleague season, NIJT; reviewing The Wrestler +++ Instant history: Olympiacos dominates last 30 minutes, tops Real Madrid, 100-88, for back-to-back titles +++ Sarunas Jasikevicius: “Basketball is not a job — it’s a dream” +++ Euroleague championship game: Official BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™ +++ Flashback to 1995: Real Madrid 73, Olympiacos 61 +++ Question of the night: Is the Euroleague’s third-place game at all relevant? +++ Poll: Who should be the 2013 Euroleague Coach of the Year? +++ Considering BallinEurope’s (imaginary) ballot for Euroleague Coach of the Year +++ Georgios Bartzokas: “We have to forget the CSKA Moscow game immediately” +++ How do you say “buzzer-beater” in Estonian? Tanel Soku shocks TU/Rock with half-courter +++
Dec
6

Teodosic watch: Milos clutch in win over FC Barcelona; CSKA Moscow displays awesome arsenal

Euroleague,latest news,Russia,Serbia,Spain

Teodosic: Hero again

Going into last night’s Euroleague-closing match against FC Barcelona, Ettore Messina and CSKA Moscow seemed to have deduced the solution to Milos Teodosic’s fourth-quarter woes dating back to the 2012 Final Four tournament: Simply blow out opponents so that no clutch play is required.

In hindsight, this game mathematically meant little: Thanks to the week 5 blowout induced by Barça, CSKA faced the nigh-impossible task of winning by 22 points against the EL-undefeated Spanish side. Revenge blowout or no, however, it was quickly obvious that both teams came unwilling to go into the ‘League break with a loss.

And so going into the fourth quarter, CSKA faced its first true crunch-time test since October. As per BallinEurope tradition, BiE reports Teodosic’s stat line through the first 30 minutes as a bit of a mixed bag: 3-of-4 overall shooting, five rebounds, three steals and five TOs.

Messina sat his starting point guard for the fourth quarter’s first 6½ minutes; despite a couple bursts of nifty transition ball by CSKA, with 3:32 remaining and Ante Tomic sinking two free throws, the Red Army had fallen a point further behind since the fourth-quarter opening.

Then in came Milos. Continue Reading…

Jul
4

NBA Draft refugees who could be heading to Europe

Euroleague,NBA,US basketball

Remember those experts who proclaim that “The 2009 Draft is one of the worst since 2001 and Kwame Brown,” and/or “There are no players worth mentioning.” No, we are not in the same situation of 2003 (the year of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh), neither 2004 (with Dwight Howard, Ben Gordon, Devin Harris, Loul Deng, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson, Jameer Nelson), but we cannot say a Blake Griffin as first overall pick is far from Andrea Bargnani at number one.

Continue Reading…