The beauty of the Top 16 beast!
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Let's get re-started in here, please! No disrespect to the Black Eyed Peas, but the last three games of this Top 16 will be more exciting than great music, more thrilling than a Hitchcock movie, more surprising than an Easter Egg. To think that defending champs Panathinaikos is one loss away from elimination, that freshly-minted national cup winners FC Barcelona, Maccabi and Montepaschi still have to fight for qualification, and that only two teams are still unbeaten, well, that makes for some great basketball. I think we all have to bask in this Devotion thing, fans included, fully understanding that to enjoy such parity means that at least three or four teams will be eliminated due to small details. At the same time, a couple of possessions here or there will be the key for three or four others making it to the playoffs. That's the beauty of this very competitive beast!
Just for the sake of understanding how teams are positioned after an odd number of games (three), I stole something that former Real Madrid coach George Karl (best wishes to the man) uses to sort the NBA standings. It's very easy: a win on the road is plus 1, a home loss is minus 1. This concurs to the following ranking:
| CSKA, Olympiacos, Khimki, Prokom and Partizan |
+1 |
| Maccabi, MPS, Real Madrid, Efes Pilsen, Maroussi, FC Barcelona |
0 |
| Cibona, Zalgiris, Unicaja, Caja Laboral, Panathinaikos |
-1 |
You probably already knew, but it's just another easy way to point out how balanced this stretch run will be. Consequently, I infer that at least a couple of groups will be decided by point difference. This means that something you can't really let happen is to relax in the late stages of a certain win or loss, because that's exactly the moment that could seal your fate.
It's unbelievable the amount of storylines that a Real Madrid-Montepaschi game will generate. Rimantas Kaukenas playing his former team, the (very) identical Lavrinovic twins battling each other, Nikos Zisis vs. his former coaching staff. Do you want more? Two Italian coaches, the former national team head man, Ettore Messina, vs. the next one, Simone Pianigiani. Those same coaches who matched wits last season around the national cups. Montepaschi beat defending champion CSKA at home in Siena by 18 points, holding Messina's men at the time to just 56 points. Montepaschi proceeded to win the Italian Cup by beating Virtus Bologna in the final (just like last week) and then flew to Moscow to get beaten by 24, with CSKA scoring 95. That loss gave Siena the dubious privilege of matching up with eventual champion Panathinaikos in the playoffs, and Pianigiani certainly remembers history. This time the situation is pretty different, with Siena having beaten Messina's new team by 8 right before again winning the Italian Cup. Now, the rematch is part of the complicated Group F puzzle in which every team has held serve at home in the first three games.
The game these teams played in Siena epitomizes what Euroleague basketball is all about. Intensity, strategy, drama, surprises: we saw it all. With Ksistof Lavrinovic out, Siena had a game for the ages by Denis Marconato, who at 34 years of age held the fort under the basket by matching his total points for this Euroleague season until then, 11. Marconato, talking about storylines, played for Messina in Treviso and was there with Jorge Garbajosa when Benetton lost to Barcelona the 2003 final. If Ksistof Lavrinovic, who played sparingly in the Italian Cup final over the weekend, can be effective in Madrid, the whole complexion of the game might change. Montepaschi's half of the Lithuanian twins has an unparalleled ability to roll and/or pop off the screens that Siena uses so much. In the end, I think it will all be about energy and details. These two teams have deep benches and very good athletes, but not necessarily in the same category, say, as FC Barcelona (who has beaten both teams multiple times). So, the fresher team will probably win on Thursday, while under the tactical point of view, the big key will be moving the ball, something Real Madrid was unable to do with consistency in Siena. Can't wait for that jump ball to go up...
I don't know what's going to happen with Panathinaikos and FC Barcelona, since Partizan and Maroussi are not a joke at all. Still, I think the Week 3 game played in Barcelona was worth a Euroleague final in terms of intensity. The "blaugrana" execution is such a beauty I sometimes found myself mesmerized watching it, so as not to lose a second of those wonderful players and ball movement. When you can put Ricky Rubio in a rotation with Jaka Lakovic and Victor Sada, when you can have Roger Grimau coming off the bench and changing the game pace by 180 degrees, when your fifth big man might play 30 minutes anywhere else, it's not easy for any opponent to resist. Even it that opponent is still very, very good (because yes, before you can count Panathinaikos and Obradovic out, you better wait for more, their 0-3 record notwithstanding). Obviously, their Greek Cup final loss will not help the Greens, while it might really skyrocket Olympiacos to a different level of awareness. Going back to Rubio, with his uncanny knack for faking while dribbling he reminds me of an old-time American football player, Elroy Hirsch. Hirsch was nicknamed "Crazy Legs" and his style was best summarized by the immortal words of Norm Van Brocklin: "You've heard of people who zig or zag. Well, Elroy Hirsch also had a zog and a couple of zugs".
Ricky "Crazy Legs" Rubio … sounds good to me !
POSTED BY
FLAVIO TRANQUILLO - ITALY
DATE:
Tuesday, February 23, 2010