World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like FC Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.



We were just short of seeing the old saying "faith moves mountains" become reality. After trailing throughout the game, the Anadolu Efes team of head coach Ufuk Sarica managed to tie the game at 65-65 with 16 seconds to go. Anadolu Efes did that thanks to courage and faith in the win, but after a foul with two free throws scored by Kostas Sloukas, the guests didnt score on their last offensive play due to the good defense of Olympiacos, who took the win home to Athens.

Its worth mentioning that in neither the first not third quarters did Efes manage to score more than 10 points, but it happened for different reasons each time.

At the beginning of the game, in front of the switching defenses of Olympiacos, the Turkish team rushed its offense and took fast outside shots whenever being defended by a zone. They missed all those shots from the arc, even though the positions they shot from were not bad. In the third quarter, however, Efes didnt score more because the... more

World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like F.C. Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.



The performances of Henry Domercant, even better than in previous seasons, are helping the Unics Kazan team of head coach Evgeny Pashutin play good basketball and surprise many with three wins in three games to start the Top 16. The offense of Unics starts working with Domercants outside shot threat, and this lets the player himself do what used to be his major virtue easily: penetrating with great power. Going into this game having made 34 of 64 three-pointers, more than a 53%, obviously influences the defense of the rivals, and creates more free spaces for his teammates.

In Clip 1 we can see how Domercant starts by scoring for three easily. It is a good collective effort, starting with the penetration of Terrell Lyday. He then stops, spins and moves the ball outside after having played a pick-and-roll in which Petr Samoylenko feeds Domercant when he switches positions. Look at how well he stops, just in time!

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World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like F.C. Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.

After more than 39 minutes of hard-fought basketball between Benet Cantu and visiting Zalgiris Kaunas on Wednesday, anybody could have won.

During the first quarter both teams had a hard time scoring. Most of the baskets arrived through good defensive efforts leading to steals and fastbreaks.

The second quarter was a three-point shootout for both teams. They seemed to be telling each other: "Anything you can do, I can do better - and from farther away!"

In the third quarter, the mental aspects of the game became more important and Bennet Cantu was starting to slow down because its point guards, both great players, seemed insecure. Meanwhile, Zalgiris was becoming stronger, playing much better than during the regular season, and that boosted their confidence to take leads of more than 10 points.

In the fourth quarter any team could have taken the win, but Cantu head coach Andrea Trinchieri rotated his players until he found the combination with... more

World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like F.C. Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coach's point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.

CSKA head coach Jonas Kazlauskas had the same position at Olympiacos for a couple years. Likewise, the current Olympiacos coach, Dusan Ivkovic, was also at CSKA Moscow before. Both had coached each other's players, too, before their teams opened the Top 16 against one another on Wednesday. As a matter of fact, Vassilis Spanoulis and Milos Teodosic were teammates last season in the Greek team.

All that mutual knowledge surely played a role in producing such a controlled game. Furthermore, Ivkovic probably thought that his team's chances to win would be bigger if they planned a less dramatic style of game. The absence of center Lazaros Papadopoulos for the Reds was covered, not in a regular manner, by other players. Kyle Hines stood out among those players who took turns playing center.

In Clip 1, we can see him scoring thanks to Martynas Gecevicius's pass in a continuation to the basket, avoiding with his... more