Before Lithuania and Macedonia tipped off, I looked at Macedonia and noted how if they continued to play the pick and roll like they did over the course of their previous EuroBasket games they were going to be in for a long night. This is because Lithuania lives and dies with their pick and roll, running it at an insane rate, and using it to create space for their below average ball handlers. When they had success, they win games. When they failed at the pick and roll, they lost games. The way Macedonia played the pick and roll in the past, it seemed like a perfect match for Lithuania. It seemed like Macedonia was so concerned with the roll man getting the basketball, the big defending the pick and roll would either stay with the roll man or hedge very softly. This gives the ball handler space, exactly what Lithuania wanted:
Not only did that space allow ball handlers to pull up for open jumpers, but it also defeated their original purpose, which was to keep the roll man from getting the basketball. This is why their PNR defense, especially when it came to defending the ball handler coming off of screens, was so ineffective in previous games.
So what happened during the game? As expected, Lithuania ran their pick and roll over and over, 35 out of 70 halfcourt possessions, a whopping 50% of the time. Lithuania scored just 30 points on those 35 possessions, committing 7 turnovers in the process. This is because there was a massive change when it came to Macedonia and their defensive strategy, deciding to hedge hard and trap the ball handler instead of playing passive. To put things in perspective out of the 162 pick and rolls that Macedonia defended before, they trapped/hedged hard just 29 times, or 17.9% of the time. Against Lithuania, they trapped/hedged hard on 25 of 35 pick and roll possessions, or 71.4% of the time. That is a gigantic shift in strategy. The result? Turnovers and contested shots due to the defense taking away space (even shots that are made are taken over defenders instead of being wide open):
We have reached the quarterfinals of EuroBasket 2011 with the final eight teams matching up over the next two days as these teams continue to fight for the two guaranteed Olympic bids. In regards to the Olympics, these quarterfinals are extremely important because a loss in this round and a loss in the subsequent consolation game means that you are out of the 2012 Olympics. There are already a lot of great preview posts out there (Seriously, go check out The Painted Area, In The Game, and Euroleague Adventures), so I thought it would be interesting to look at a key match-up for each quarterfinal game.
In maybe the most interesting match-up of the quarterfinals, host nation Lithuania takes on surprising quarterfinalist Macedonia. Macedonia was able to make the quarterfinals by pairing a Bo McCalebb-powered offense with a very good defense. According to In The Game, Macedonia allowed just 65 points per 70 possessions, which was the third best among the 24 EuroBasket teams. However, there is one area where Macedonia tends to struggle on the defensive end, and that is when it comes to defending a ball handler in pick and roll situations. Normally, this would be a problem, but something that can be worked around. Against Lithuania, this is a huge problem.
Lithuania, who at times look like championship contenders and at times look like they could be eliminated at any moment, relies heavily on the pick and roll to help their offense and allow their ball handlers to create for themselves and others. Out of the 561 halfcourt possessions that Lithuania has run during EuroBasket, they have ran a pick and roll where the ball handler or roll man ended the possession (FGA, Turnover, or Foul) 178 times, or 31.7%. Essentially, Lithuania is running a pick and roll 1 in every 3 halfcourt possessions. When they are having success with it, they are doing things like beating Serbia by 10 while scoring 100 points. When they are struggling with the pick and roll while going up against a good defense, they are losing and scoring just 67 points (which is what happened when they faced France).
We have reached the quarterfinals of EuroBasket 2011 with the final eight teams matching up over the next two days as these teams continue to fight for the two guaranteed Olympic bids. In regards to the Olympics, these quarterfinals are extremely important because a loss in this round and a loss in the subsequent consolation game means that you are out of the 2012 Olympics. There are already a lot of great preview posts out there (Seriously, go check out The Painted Area, In The Game, and Euroleague Adventures), so I thought it would be interesting to look at a key match-up for each quarterfinal game.
On paper, this match-up between Spain and Slovenia is probably the biggest mismatch. On offense, Slovenia, especially Goran Dragic, has been struggling all EuroBasket and Spain has one of the best defenses in the tournament (they were 4th in all of EuroBasket in points allowed per 70 possessions, according to In The Game). However, there is one area where the struggling Slovenians are having success offensively, and that is on the block. During this EuroBasket, Slovenia has posted a PPP of 1.0 on the block, which is good for 5th among the 24 EuroBasket participants. The good thing about post play being the only real strength of Slovenia’s offense right now is that despite having Serge Ibaka and the Gasol brothers, Spain’s post defense hasn’t been great. In fact, with Spain looking like they have figured out their PNR defense (something that really gave them problems during prep games), defending the post seems to be the only hole in their defense. In the 48 post up possessions they have seen during EuroBasket, they have given up 45 points which in terms of PPP works out to 0.9375, good for 15th among the 24 EuroBasket teams.
Digging a little further, you notice that Slovenia only posts up two players with very different results. So far during this competition, Erazem Lorbek and Mirza Begic have combined for 76.5% of Slovenia’s post up attempts. Lorbek has posted a PPP of 0.643 while Begic has a PPP of 1.667 (the highest PPP in the tournament so far).
We already know that Lithuania loves their pick and rolls, as they ran it 30+ times in at least two (and quite possibly a few more) of their games in this EuroBasket. Fighting for seeding, Lithuania needed a win and late in the game they found themselves trying to pull away from Germany. To do that, they used the pick and roll. However, it was some movement away from the pick and roll that freed up Jonas Valanciunas for his two big dunks on the roll to the rim:
We pick up this possession as Jonas Valanciunas gets in position to set a ball screen for his teammate. Valanciunas’ defender, Chris Kaman, is going to step up and hedge on the screen, relying on his teammate’s help defense in the corner to try and stop Valanciunas as he rolls to the rim.
With their EuroBasket (and Olympic) lives on the line, Turkey found themselves with the basketball on the baseline down one with 4.0 seconds left in the game, where a win would keep them in the conversation for a quarterfinal spot (they needed a few more results to go their way as well). However, they were unable to get a clean look off despite Turkey’s head coach drawing up a solid misdirection play. The problem is that it wasn’t executed correctly by the players on the court:
Turkey sets up with point guard Ender Arslan as the trigger man and the rest of the team positioning themselves around the free throw line. As soon as the ball goes to Arslan, Ömer Onan comes off of a screen set by Ersan Ilyasova and heads towards the basketball in the corner.
As Onan comes off of the screen, Hedo Turkoglu trails him and gets in position to set a screen on the wing. As this is happening, Emir Preldzic fades to the opposite wing, creating space at the top of the key.
Coming out to start the third quarter, Slovenia found themselves trailing Greece by 12 points, giving up 37 points in the first 20 minutes of basketball. In the third quarter, Slovenia held Greece to just 7 points, and after outscoring Greece by 14 points, they found themselves up 2 points entering the fourth quarter. If you didn’t watch the game, but saw that Slovenia played zone for much of the third quarter, you would be inclined to assume that Slovenia’s zone was fantastic, and it was really effective in stopping Greece. However, that wasn’t the case, as Slovenia’s zone was sloppy, lazy, and they allowed themselves to be stretched way to easily.
The zone that Slovenia was playing was a 3-2 zone, with the two wings on the zone playing really wide, all the way out to the three point line. Obviously, the goal of this zone was to deny Greece any looks from the three point line (either up top or on the wing), but what that does is it stretches out the defense and leaves a HUGE gap at the top of the key. Because of that gap, Slovenia needs to rotate quickly with the basketball:
On this first possession (or any possession to be completely honest), they don’t do that. Greece gets the basketball to the wing and flash a player to the middle. The defense has to react, and they have to rotate (again, covering a lot of ground) with Greece’s fantastic ball movement. Eventually, there is a huge driving lane and Greece is able to take advantage and get the lay-up.
Yesterday, host country Lithuania played their best game of the tournament taking it to Serbia and coming away with the 10 point win. Coming into the game, you could tell that Lithuania had one thing on their mind, to attack Serbia, and Nenad Krstic in particular, with the pick and roll on the offensive end. 38 of Lithuania’s 77 halfcourt possessions were pick and rolls, a whopping 49% of possessions (they have run it 25.9% of the time over the course of the tournament), scoring 51 points on those possessions (good for a PPP of 1.342). While Lithuania’s pick and roll play is good, it isn’t that good, and their success was due in large part to Serbia’s poor pick and roll defense. In addition to exposing Krstic and his inability to show and get back to his man, Serbia’s weakside help was horrendous. The result? On the 9 possessions where Lithuania hit the roll man, they scored 16 points on 8-9 shooting:
Whenever a Lithuanian ball handler would use a ball screen (almost always set by the big that Nenad Krstic was defending) and Serbia would respond by having Krstic hedge as the man defending the ball handler as the big rolls straight to the rim.
Like France and Serbia, both Slovenia and Russia knew they were going to be advancing to the second round of EuroBasket, but they were playing to determine the best team in their group, and with games against other 2nd round teams carrying over, this was an incredibly important game. Russia found themselves trailing Slovenia by 1 point with 7,5 seconds left. Russia’s coach, David Blatt, relied on a motion heavy set coming out of the side, to free up a shooter in the corner.
The play starts with two Russians starting at the top of the key, and as the ball goes to the trigger man, both men at the top of the key get screens taking them to the corner.
After both players come off of the screens, Andrey Vorontsevich, the screener on the weakside, then flashes to the wing to meet the basketball and make himself available to the trigger man.
In maybe the best game of EuroBasket so far, France played against Serbia in an effort to determine the winner of group B. The game went into overtime when Tony Parker missed a jumper at the buzzer of the 4th quarter. In overtime, after Nicolas Batum missed two free throws, Serbia ended up taking a one point lead with about 20 seconds left. Instead of playing defense straight up, which is what they did at the end of regulation, Serbia decided to try and take an intentional foul on Tony Parker, the ball handler. They failed, but eventually Parker was fouled with 19.4 seconds left:
As Zach Lowe at SI said, this is something that you would never see in the NBA, but this is something that you do see in international basketball. Instead of allowing France to wind the clock down, take the final shot, and win the game without having the chance to get the ball back on offense. The strategy worked as planned as Serbia was able to bring the basketball up, and get a chance to win the game after Tony Parker knocked down his free throws.
When Turkey played Lithuania yesterday, it was probably the best/closest game of the day. With about three minutes left, Lithuania found themselves trailing Turkey by two points. As Lithuania brought the basketball up, they got into their pick and roll clear out set. A good close-out kept Lithuania from hitting the three point shot in the corner, but the lack of a box out on the original screener, Darius Songaila, lead to a key basket for Lithuania.
We pick up the play as the point guard sets up in the corner (after clearing through) and as Darius Songaila gets in position to set the screen. The ball handlers comes off of the screen and Omer Asik steps up to prevent dribble penetration as the man defending the ball handler comes over the screen.
