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).
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.
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.
With the number of international friendlies being played increasing due to preparations being for EuroBasket at the end of the month, there are some interesting matchups and interesting finishes, I’ll be breaking those down.
We already looked at Slovenia’s offense in depth, but one of the sets that we were unable to look at was their late game offense during a close game, because Slovenia wasn’t in that type of situation. Well, yesterday against Montenegro, Slovenia had the ball up three with about 1:30 left. Wanting to run clock and still get a good look at the basket (something that NBA teams struggle with, looking at you Atlanta), Slovenia got into their late game motion offense, an offense that resulted in a wide open dunk.
As the ball gets brought up the court, Slovenia gets set up in their 4 high set with all four Slovenians off of the ball setting up foul line extended. The play starts with a wing (in this case Goran Dragic) flashing up and making himself available for the pass.
Once that happens the point guard dives and cuts to the strong side block. Once that happens, the big set up on the strong side elbow pops out and makes himself available for the pass.
In 28 days EuroBasket, an European competition featuring 24 countries and a high number of NBA players. With the much anticipated exodus of NBA players to Europe not exactly happening (as of yet), this could be the last time you see some really good NBA players play in a true competitive setting for a really long time. To get everyone more familiar with what we are going to see during the EuroBasket tournament, I am going to look at each team’s offense and break down a few interesting sets that they run, using game tape from the preparation games that are currently being played.
Slovenia, who is in Group D of the preliminary round, starts off their tournament against Bulgaria, and if their preparation games are any indication, we are going to see a lot of interesting sets being run from this team.
Halfcourt Offense
Movement Set
Maybe the most interesting play that Slovenia has been running is a play that features a lot of movement off of the basketball taking place at the same time. At times, during this set, there are 4 players moving at once off of the ball. As you can guess, this creates a lot of confusion:
The play starts with the point guard bringing the basketball up and entering it to the wing. After making the pass, he follows the basketball and meets the wing he just passed it to for a dribble handoff.
Against Brazil, Slovenia took the lead early and hung on for the win. That doesn’t mean it was uneventful though, as Brazil cut Slovenia’s lead to five twice late in the fourth quarter. Each time Slovenia responded with a clutch three point shot:
Post Threat Opens Up Outside
Slovenia’s offense involves a lot of cut, dives, and post ups. In addition to having that stuff get open looks, it also draws the help side defense, and that is what freed up Slovenia’s first three up by five with right around 3 minutes left.
Up five with around three minutes left, Slovenia is trying to milk the clock. Instead of having their point guard dribbling out the clock, they do it the correct way though in my opinion, they run through their offense. The first step is having a double screen set for their point guard.
