Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog

They’re breaking out the superlatives today over at the ACB’s official website, full in the afterglow of a weekend’s worth of mostly tight games or, as writer Malo de Molina put it, “¡Qué jornada!”

When the dust settled, Real Madrid (20-5) had beaten fourth-place Valencia (16-9) and wrested second place from slipping Caja Laboral Baskonia (20-5), who suffered a shocking 74-58 loss to no. 6 Asefa Estudiantes (13-12).

Cajasol (ranked 5th, 15-10) and giant-killers Gran Canaria 2014 (8th, 12-13) continued their upward trend with wins over Valladolid (10th, 11-14) and Suzuki Manresa (11th, 11-14), respectively. Xacobeo Blu:sens (17th, 8-17) and DKV Joventut (9th, 12-13) managed to snap losing streaks, the latter scoring its first win under coach Pepu Hernandez.

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It’s not that BallinEurope is obsessed with both Bill Simmons and Rubio-to-Minnesota, but … all right, i am obsessed with both Bill Simmons and Rubio-to-Minnesota. Still, when BiE finally got around to reading this week’s patented “Mailbag” column only to see no. 1 best-selling author The Sports Guy take an incorrect swipe at the poster boy for European basketball’s future on the international stage, well, BiE had to come to the defense of Rubio, especially since the sparring partner in this debate will never actually see this column, heh heh.

The topic was, as stated, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ future. A frustrated fan sought empathy from Simmons in a pleading email that dissected a bit of the infamous 50% season-ticket discount the Wolves are pitching which BiE had a look at last week.

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Coach Ivanovic may now exhale

Better late than never (totally BiE’s fault, let me tell you) comes Ball in Europe’s dispatch from Francesco Cappelletti rounding up the week that was in Euroleague basketball. For your amusement and edification, Francesco discusses, among other topics, the Terrell McIntyre Backup Curse, which teams should sweep into the Final Four, why Maccabi Tel Aviv is so good in 2009-10 and why Cibona Zagreb should be awesome in 2010-11.

Thrilling night
When a Bojan Bogdanovic-less Cibona Zagreb was up 72-58 with three minutes to go, Caja Laboral’s nightmare was very close to become reality. Then, a 17-2 run handled by Marcelinho Huertas turned the lights out for an overtime everyone knew would not be balanced at all. Baskonia scored 24 points in five minutes to ensure a gap BC Khimki couldn’t fill. With radio and voices running, the 22 point-margin BC Khimki had over Olympiacos to begin the fourth quarter, eventually becoming a 96-83 final score, was insufficient to reach second place in Group H.

Dusko Ivanovic can breathe again now, as his team qualified for the playoffs. But we have to thank Cibona, which was able to play their game even after elimination, just for the love of the game.

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Nice of the Euroleague to stack up nearly every game in the last round of the Top 16 on one night, eh? Sheesh, this is worse (or better, depending on viewpoint) than the weekend following the All-Star Game in the NBA. Of the seven games on the slate, six will still help shape the final eight field; the sole “pride game” tonight will be the Montepaschi Siena-Efes Pilsen match in Italy. Officially-derived possibilities for the final eight may be found at the Euroleague website.

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The big news from Spain – with probable ramifications for much of Europe; so is basketball in 2010 – was the Valladolid-FC Barcelona result. Barça came to town, donned the wacky day-glo uniforms and decisively took down Valladolid by a score of 73-59 behind Terrence Morris’ 20 points and eight rebounds. It was all the hosts could do, notes ACB reportage, to hold their own until ultimately succumbing to superior talent:

El Regal FC Barcelona se llevó el triunfo de su visita a la cancha del Blancos de Rueda Valladolid que, aunque plantó cara durante muchos minutos, acabó cediendo ante la calidad de su rival.

Ho hum, you say? Perhaps it is just another déjà vu result from the ACB, but with the win, Barcelona clinches a spot in the Spanish league tournament bracket with some 10 games to go in the 2009-10 regular season. The officially-created highlight clip from the game runs below the break.

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Sofoklis!

This week’s three minutes of fun features Jamont Gordon totally giving up the body, an emphatic rejection from D’Or Fischer, Juan Carlos Navarro looking a little like Steve Nash without the pass, Bo McCalebb going up about 200 feet for the jam, but most of all BallinEurope’s main man Sofoklis Schortsanitis passing like a guard in what was the big guy’s most dominant show since Greece took care of Team USA’s mostly nonexistent inside game back in the 2006 FIBA Worlds…

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Scariolo: No, really, i can explain everything...

With one more week of Euroleague play to go before the field of viable contenders officially shrinks again, Ball in Europe contributor Francesco Cappelletti wraps the round that was in the big league. In this week’s roundup, Signor C. laments Montepaschi Siena’s fate, Sergio Scariolo’s precarious position and the reason Olympiacos might yet give Barca a workout before all is said and done (Hint: It starts with “Linas” and ends with “Kleiza”).

Group F focus
Oddly, the group which could have been in doubt until the buzzer of Week 6 suddenly has two qualified teams after five weeks: These are Real Madrid and Maccabi Tel Aviv, teams which will meet next Thursday at Palacio Vistalegre to define a first place currently in possession of the Israeli side for their 81-76 victory of February 4.

Montepaschi Siena was shocked by a 43-point fourth quarter scored by Alan Anderson and teammates. OK, take out the final (meaningless) 10 points, and 33 remain on the back of the Italian champions. How was this possible? MPS had recovered during the third period thanks to big hearted Terrell McIntyre and bad offensive decisions from previously unstoppable Doron Perkins, but, I mean, if you play with six men (seven minutes of nothing for Nikos Zisis in crisis, Ksistof Lavrinovic plagued by back spasms), and you enter the final fraction with a 3-point advantage at Yad Eliyahu, well, you know your destiny.

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Rubio-ooooooooooooooo!

“Teams survive on TV money, season-ticket revenue and luxury suites. They don’t care about the upper decks. They care about getting fat checks in March and April for the following season, then banking that money for a few months and collecting interest on it. They care about getting us to pay for a spring’s worth of playoff tickets up front even though our team might survive only eight days in the postseason. And if they stink, they care about only one thing: creating an illusion of regret.” – Bill “The Sports Guy” Simmons

The statement sounded good, with the general manager apparently committed to landing his hard-to-sign first-round draft pick and thereby soon bring relief to fans of a franchise essentially troubled since its inception.

And then you realize it’s David Kahn talking about signing Ricky Rubio. David Kahn of the long-suffering Minnesota Timberwolves. And you start thinking about what ESPN columnist Simmons so succinctly summarized as the “illusion of regret.”

“The illusion of regret is crucial. It’s the single most important dynamic in the NBA right now. It drives every lottery drawing, every trade deadline and every free-agency period.”

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“Best of the (Basketball) Net” is one day late this week, but that extra 24 hours or so will surely make all the difference in terms of quality. For some most interesting recently-posted basketball-related stuff from the interweb, read on to check out excerpts from a classic of basketball literature, see highlights from a big ACB upset, discover Dirk Nowitzki’s secret weapon, and to witness the first-ever truly 21st-century dunks. Enjoy!

• Anybody who remembers the seminal book Heaven is a Playground will definitely want to check out this interview with Rick Telander conducted by the amazingly-named Bethlehem Shoals. For those of you not-in-the-know, be sure to check out the extended excerpts from the book which ran at Slam online in October 2008 and precipitated the book’s recent new edition out of University of Nebraska Press; and you can click here for the book’s official site.

Incidentally, the book was also morphed into a, um, not-so-great film starring D.B. Sweeney in the Telander role and featuring ballers Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon (no, really) and former NBAer/Hank Gathers teammate Bo Kimble.

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Not this year

The critical week four of Euroleague Top 16 action is in the books, but Ball in Europe’s man in Italy, Francesco Cappelletti, is still musing on the shifts ‘n’ events thanks to these eight games. This week’s frank roundup wishes Panathinaikos bye-bye, gives mucho deserved props to Pini Gershon, and bestows an “accolade” upon Zabian Dowdell. Read on!

Goodbye Panathinaikos
Before this week, it seemed nearly impossible that Panathinaikos would put itself again on the road to the playoffs. The evidence for the Greens’ struggle weren’t in the numbers which still didn’t damn the defending champions, but somehow it was all in the body language, the play expressed by a group which showed complacency and an unwillingness to fight, to get their hands dirty.

Maybe Zelimir Obradovic thought his men would have woken up when it counted; instead, even against Regal FC Barcelona, into an in-and-out game whose content must recall for Mike Batiste and his teammates remember not-so-faraway times, PAO looked like the same squad devoid of motivation, tactical themes, and unselfishness that appeared during the first phase. FC Barcelona simply had to stay close to the Greens until the final moments, when it was cleared which was the real united group and which was a jumble of overpaid men – though not overrated, be careful – unable to unify.

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