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'NO TOMORROW' IS ALREADY HERE
 They're coming... The hot games are coming at us, and it couldn't get any better. The Top 16 and the Quarterfinal Playoffs will bring excitement, but these games with no tomorrow are already being played in an arena near you. An example was Unicaja's win at the buzzer vs. a very valiant Lottomatica team on Wednesday. It was not a high-scoring game, nor one for lovers of effortless ball movement. But the defenses played like they were in Athens and it was May 6 already. There was indeed a kind of final atmosphere in Malaga. The outcome was decided by Pepe Sanchez's pass to Florent Pietrus, who made a reverse layup at the buzzer - his only basket of the game - to give Unicaja a two-point win. I have already heard a lot of opinions about Pepe's eighth and final assist in that game. Some say it was a normal pass, and the product of a very passive defense on Rome's side (which is, of course partially, true). My own take - since opinions are like noses and everybody has one - is that Pepe's pass was a magnificent play, another stroke of genius by one of the five best pure passers in the world today. (I only rank Nash and Jasikevicius in his class, but I might be a little biased, because I really love watching this guy play).
If you have not seen the play, Lottomatica took its last shot with David Hawkins making a one-on-one isolation attempt that missed. Unicaja rebounded with 7 seconds to play and got the bll to Sanchez. This is the key moment and the reason why this play was sooooooo special. I'd say that 99.9999% of the human race in this same predicament would advance the ball as fast as possible to squeeze every split second of the opportunity from the clock. But Sanchez, inexplicably at first ...slowed his dribble! It looked bizarre, but it gave him time to seize the moment - and it literally froze the defense. One second later he picked up his pace, "told" Pietrus somehow to cut to the basket and let go a perfect bounce pass off the dribble, sending his teammate for an easy layup alone. I mean, the pass in itself is not exceptional, but the time, the situation, the importance of the game and the unusual way it unfolded made it an original masterpiece in my view. (Yes, I have too many opinions for my own good, but it's just for the sake of talking basketball.) Should that game be reduced to this last sequence? Of course not. Is Pepe Sanchez the absolute truth? Again, no: he's maybe too cerebral a player for a lot of teammates, a very reluctant shooter and somewhat of a defensive liability when guarding quick players (even if his anticipation as a halfcourt defender is also great). But if we talk passing, especially from the dribble, with both hands, and watching the whole court, we are in the neighborhood of one of the greats of the game.
A couple things from Pepe's bio. First, he was born on May 8, the same day some 26 years after Mike D'Antoni was born. If you saw Mike play the point guard position with Milan in countless Euroleague games (also winning the very first Final Four in Ghent), you know what I mean about this connection. The Phoenix Suns coach was a real team leader, and even if I doubt Sanchez saw too many of D'Antoni's games in Bahia Blanca, Goethe's "Elective Affinities" apply here, and the coincidence is striking. Did I say Bahia Blanca? I wanna ask you this: what are the chances that two skinny lefties from Bahia Blanca, born less than a kilometer apart, not the best players of their age in Argentina's juniors championships, later find themselves competing head-to-head in a Euroleague Final (Bologna 2002), sharing Olympic podium with gold medals around their necks and reaching as far as the NBA? If you say none, you are scientifically right. But Emanuel David Ginobili and Juan Ignacio Sanchez did exactly those things. Consider that less than 15% of the world population is left-handed and how many inhabitants of the planet ever get a chance to compete for a Euroleague title, isn't it amazing?
I don't know if Lottomatica can make it to the Top 16, but chances are they might not be able to reach the promised land. I don't know either if Eldo will get there, even if the horizon is decidedly brighter for Naples. What I know is that these two Italian teams, and Climamio for that matter, finished pretty strong, showing significant strides after difficult starts. Especially impressive is Eldo's recent run, with wins on the road at Treviso, Pau and Istanbul, places you don't leave with a W just by accident. Nine guys on this team are Euroleague rookies, and it was ten before Tyrone Ellis replaced Tierre Brown (the mother of all good moves, even if I consider Brown to be an excellent offensive player who happened to play in the wrong system). The common perception is that you don't win in the Euroleague with so many "freshmen", not even if they are experienced players. To come back after losing five of the first six games (two, discouraginly, in overtime) is really a testament to the exuberance of a team that when playing aggressively must be taken seriously by everybody. Of course, with so many exceptional athletes on hand (Morandais, Trepagnier, Sesay to quickly name three), my main man is a slow-footed, undersized center who has the biggest heart in the competition. His name is Mason Rocca, and if you saw his performance last week, when Eldo came back at Pau in the fourth quarter, you know he can overcome skills and physical limitations to say the least. After all, this is a guy who played against Yao Ming in Japan and, believe it or not, more than held his own versus the best center in the game. Rocca also got 27 votes in the mayoral elections in Naples: if these comeback kids can finish the job by beating Benetton in the last game, next time Mason might really become the city's mayor!
In due time, the all-Euroleague team be elected. Way before the All-Euroleague vote, however, I would like to select my All-Unusual Euroleague Five. I had this idea watching Panathinaikos guard Dimitris Diamantidis in Rome, where he was the most dominant shot-blocker on the floor (not something new for the two-time Euroleague Best Defender). So, here is my team, comprised of players who excel in things they supposedly should not even think of doing: Diamantidis, as said, at guard for his shot-blocking. Theo Papaloukas, also at guard, for his uncanny knack at finding the open man and generating offense with his back to the basket. (How can you conceivably try to stop those two point guards when they play together for the Greek national team?). Alex Acker, at small forward, for his rebounding (top 15 in the Euroleague). Nikola Vujcic of Maccabi at power forward for his unbelievable passing skills and David Andersen at CSKA for his newly found three-point accuracy (12-20 despite missing 2 of 3 in Barcelona). I don't know how many wins these five would get playing together, but they would be fun to watch. And versatility shouldn't be a problem after all!
POSTED BY
Flavio Tranquillo - Italy
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