Euroleague: The Campazzo-Hezonia partnership at the top of the Top 10

It can Top 10 not have Greek representation this week, however both Olympiakos and Panathinaikos are present as the opponents hit some excellent baskets in the EuroLeague 4 game.

Yes, cooperation Campacho-Hezoniawhich led to the Croatian’s impressive alley-oop dunk tops the relevant list. A similar collaboration was set up by Larkin with him Poirier against the “red and whites”, with the Frenchman finishing the phase very well.

Enjoy the ten best phases of the 4th matchday:

Read more: Intergalactic rosters are good, but… you “die” if you’re not tough in the Euroleague

The end of the devil’s week in the Euroleague for Panathinaikos and Olympic looks like him myth of Narcissus. Of the young man who fell so much in love with his idol in the water, that when he bent down to touch it he fell into the lake and drowned. Likewise the “eternals” seem to have placed so much weight on their indisputable quality that they forgot that in EuroLeague dogfights, the fittest doesn’t always survive if not at least as tough as his opponent.

The path, in Madrid and Istanbul from Real for them though Effects on the other hand, it comes to remind that the budgets of 20 million euros are good, rightly the “eternal” are considered to have the highest quality and most complete rosters in the Euroleague, however to reach the Final 4 last year – with much smaller budgets and much less talent-one at the top and the other in third place, they had to present the two best defenses of the season. And if they do not come close to similar performances this year, then in several nights they will leave with their heads bowed.

The lost balance of Panathinaikos

Panathinaikos lost in Paris and Madrid, to two generally level teams, in the same way. Entering the match with the… slipperspacing the opposition and chasing the score for about 75 of the 80 minutes of the two games. Ball pressure, turnovers, defensive transition and rebounding were all very problematicto such an extent that the surplus of talent and solutions from the opponent is not enough to win at least one of the two games of the devil’s week. With Brown penalized by “parking” on the bench for his poor image in the first three and a half minutes, Sluka clearly out of rhythm, Nunn not having enough breath to withstand “running” the entire attack and being correspondingly energetic in defense , but also the equilibrist Grant this year in reduced minutes because the beans don’t come out, the first zone of defense of Panathinaikos breaks down very easily and that’s where everything goes wrong. Breaks are created, defensive balance occurs, and if opponents don’t find an easy basket on a drive or pick-and-roll, they create countless free shots on the perimeter. When, well, the few good defenses or missed shots are accompanied by renewed attacks, the damage becomes greater and even the 86 points you can put in the home of Real on a night when players like Slukas, Lessor and Brown are … off, they turn out to be few.

Shall we say it with numbers? Panathinaikos won the Euroleague last year by finishing the season with just about the second best defense, with 110.2 passive points per 100 possessions. This year, having played only one very difficult game, this one in Madrid, and having faced three other teams that seem impossible to even be in contention for the play ins, it counts in the first four matches 117 passive points per 100 possessions. In addition, opponents have exactly the same percentage of earned offensive rebounds (31.4%) as last year, showing that the most basic weakness of last season’s team remainsalthough there is now more depth and athleticism. In general, if Panathinaikos does not recover the intensity, defensive egoism and synchronization in the rear that had been put in place by its authorities Ergin Ataman last year, his immense offensive talent may not be enough not for the back-to-back, but maybe not even for a Final 4 berth.

He finds it on offense, but lost it on defense

In a game where he scored 89 points, shot amazingly on 2-pointers (57.9%), 3-pointers (43.5%) and field goals (88.2%), who had 26 assists to just 9 turnovers and led by… 37: 08 in the game, Olympiacos spilled the milk quite simply because suffered on defense. The “red and white” despite the good writing samples they had presented at the back in their two previous games, on Friday night they were only effective in the first quarter. In the next three periods they “betrayed” their DNA by accepting 80 minutes from Ephesus.

With except for Walkup (mainly) and Falthe rest were not at all consistent at the back. Perimeter defense became a stumbling block to the ability of some Efes players in the individual phase, hands stayed down, screens were rarely broken properly and on the few occasions when the defense came out or the opponents did the favor of missing, rebounds were being lost. It is typical that in Efes’ 27 missed shots, the hosts renewed their attacks 13 times (!), which is not only unprecedented this year. In the four matches of the Euroleague and without having faced the best front line yet, the Piraeus only get 59.7% of the defensive rebounds after missed attacks by their opponents.

Even so, however, Olympiacos could win in the city for the first time since 2017, if the Fournier had better options in the end if o Vezenkov took more than just three shots in the second half (where he played 20 minutes) or if Bartzokas showed more confidence in the second half in Dorsey who after his very good first half did not take a second on the floor.

In conclusion, the EuroLeague is too tough a league to survive on your quality alone. In fact, no team, in any league or competition, from the NBA to the Olympics, EuroBasket and World Cups, wins titles with the arrogance of simply having more talent than the competition to score more goals no matter what… eat back The sooner the “eternals” realize this, because they actually have the tools to play better defense, the fewer losses they will have and the more chance they will have to reach their big goal.

PS: There is no reason to panic or grumble. After all, only three weeks and four games passed in the Euroleague for there not to be a single undefeated team. Spells make sense at this point in the season as long as they are “read” and countered effectively. But the first step to correcting a mistake is to admit it.