Euroleague Round-up, Round 4: Beware of Mother Russia and Patric Young
There are multiple European leagues with multiple teams in the Euroleague tournament, each of which is having a wildly different experience from the rest. The French and Italian sides are struggling to stay competitive; Germany has one strong side and one who’s struggling to stay alive; Spain’s sides looked ugly early but have rebounded; Turkey’s teams looked strong early but have started to struggle; and the Greek league has one team that looks like a finalist contender and one that may be on the way out.
The one league having sustained success across the board, though, is the Russian VTB league. There are three teams left that are undefeated: CSKA Moscow, Kuban Krasnodar and Khimki Moscow, who has the best point differential in Group A. The Russian teams are slightly lacking in NBA prospects, but they’re definitely some of the best-looking teams in the contest so far.
Group A
Without a doubt, this week’s biggest Euroleague game was Real Madrid’s 101-99 win over Bayern Munich. Madrid has struggled so far in this tournament, with losses to Khimki Moscow and Fenerbahce Ulker, and Bayern has been solid defensively so far, which is why it was good to see Real hit 51.5 percent from the field in a game where defense was at a premium.
Madrid had a furious comeback in the fourth quarter using some brilliant offensive execution by Sergio Rodriguez and Sergio Llull, eventually winning on a wide-open Jaycee Carroll 3-pointer. Nihad Djedovic led Bayern again with a 22-point, three assist performance and Paul Zipser was solid in 15 minutes of action, posting four points, four rebounds and three assists. He’s been rather consistent off the bench for Bayern, a big reason why he shows potential as an NBA prospect.
Group A’s leaders, meanwhile, had comfortable wins this weekend. Khimki Moscow beat Strasbourg, 88-62, thanks to excellent guard play from Alexey Shved, Zoran Dragic and Tyrese Rice. Marko Todorovic and James Augustine struggled, combining for nine points on eight shots, but it didn’t matter because Khimki’s team defense was great, limiting Strasbourg to 36.5 percent shooting on the game.
Meanwhile, Fenerbahce disposed of Crvena Zvezda behind strong frontcourt play. Ekpe Udoh had 12 points, while Pero Antic was fantastic with 14 points and seven rebounds and more confirmation that he’s the scariest-looking spot-up shooter in Europe.
Group B
The biggest game of the weekend in Group B also featured a close win for a Spanish side, as Laboral Kutxa moved to 3-1 by beating Anadolu Efes in overtime, 92-90. In the win, Laboral got 18 points and 11 rebounds from Ioannis Bourousis, who also helped push a 13-3 run that forced OT.
Efes once again failed to utilize Dario Saric or Cedi Osman until late, instead riding Thomas Huertel and his 27-point output to stay in the game. However, both played key roles late, as Saric helped by hitting a shot at the beginning of overtime and gathering one of his seven rebounds to allow Osman to attempt a game-winning 3-pointer. Osman bricked both 3s he took in this game, though, one of which was the aforementioned game-winner attempt. Osman’s barely made any impact in this tournament and he isn’t getting minutes in the domestic league either, which bodes poorly for the Cavs, who own his rights.
Olympiacos, meanwhile, also improved to 3-1 by destroying Limoges, 75-49. Former New Orleans Pelicans forward Patric Young continued his impressive performance in the tournament for the Greeks, posting 13 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks, including this vicious putback dunk over Frejus Zerbo:
Nikola Milutinov also got some good time, posting five rebounds in 10 minutes of action. We’re only about a third of the way through this round robin, but Limoges looks like the earliest safe bet to not advance to the next round.
Once again, Alessandro Gentile had a good scoring output for Olimpia Milano, but as a team Milano looked discombobulated in a loss. Usually it’s EA7’s defense that’s the problem, but Cedevita held Milano to 35 percent shooting from the field and Milano’s offense was miserable, basically boiling down to making Gentile do everything. Gentile had 19 points, but it came on seventeen shots and he also struggled to stop James White, who had 15/7/3 for Cedevita.
More notable, though, was the first sign of life from Marko Arapovic. The eighth-best international prospect in the ’96 class has started every game for Cedevita, but had yet to make much of a dent until this weekend, when he posted 11 points and six rebounds with very active defense in the win.
Group C
Barcelona knocked off Zalgiris, 85-78, thanks to strong play from their frontcourt. Jazz prospect Ante Tomic had 18 points and eight rebounds in the win, looking great for the second straight week, while Tomas Satoransky added seven points, four assists and three steals. Olivier Hanlan, who’s looked strong as a bench guard for Zalgiris so far, struggled against Juan Carlos Navarro and only had two points on four shots in 16 minutes of play.
Kubin Krasnodar stayed undefeated, beating Karsiyaka 72-53 behind 13 points from Victor Claver. Krasnodar hit 68.8 percent of their shots from inside the arc, getting to the rim consistently through Malcolm Delaney and Evgeny Voronov. Karsiyaka couldn’t hit anything from the field, but did get a strong effort from Colton Iverson, who had 12 points and six rebounds in the loss.
What’s happening with Panathinaikos? The Greek side looked great in a week two win over Karsiyaka, but is really struggling otherwise, including this week’s 71-68 loss to Group C cupcake Zielona Gora. Pana hit just 5-27 from 3-point range and despite a 10-point, five rebound effort from Ognjen Kuzmic, Pana’s guards couldn’t cut it from outside. They also looked ugly defensively, which has been a running theme for the team this season.
Group D
The Brose Baskets-Maccabi Tel Aviv game was definitely one of the most bizarre results of the tournament. Brose Baskets took a 42-35 lead into the half, then their offense completely died in the third quarter and Maccabi ran up a six-point lead heading into the final frame. However, just as things looked like they were going well for Maccabi, Nicolo Melli and Daniel Theis led the German side on a 12-0 run and put the game out of reach for Maccabi.
Dragan Bender only saw limited action yet again, dishing two assists in six minutes.
Unijica Malaga beat Sassari 80-62, as the Spanish side improved to 4-0. They did this despite relatively poor performances from Nemanja Nedovic and Daniel Diez, who have been very good for them this year, instead relying on Richard Hendrix III and his 19 points. Meanwhile, Milos Teodosic had 22 points and nine assists in CSKA Moscow’s surprisingly close 80-75 win over Darussafaka. Luke Harangody made a spirited push for the Turkish side, posting 18 points and seven rebounds, but Teodosic iced the game for CSKA and the Euroleague’s strongest squad made it to 4-0.
Prospect of the Week: Patric Young, F, Olympiacos
The former Gator made noise at the 2014 NBA Summer League with a strong performance for the New Orleans Pelicans. After getting cut in training camp, though, Young moved to Europe, where he spent last year with Galatasaray and this season with Olympiacos.
So far, he’s making a strong case to return to the NBA.
This weekend’s win over Limoges was the perfect encapsulation of Young’s Euroleague performance so far. He posted 13 points, 10 board and five blocks, and was a destructive force on both ends, eliminating chance after chance for Limoges at the rim and finishing dump-offs and putbacks on offense. Young looks much better defensively this season than he did while at Florida, which is the biggest change in his game this year. He’s improved his shot-contesting timing and he’s sticking with his man for longer, avoiding prematurely tracking rebounds in favor of playing solid help defense. That’s made him a better overall defensive player and makes him a viable player to consider for NBA teams, because he needs to be a good defender to overcome limited offensive ability.
Young should continue to play this well for Olympiacos. If he does, I’d expect him to get a call this summer to come back to the NBA.
Next Week
Next week is the biggest weekend of games so far, with each group having top teams facing off. Group A sees Fenerbahce playing Khimki Moscow, Group B sees Olympiacos try to sustain their early success against Anadolu Efes and Group C gives Kuban Krasnodar their first big test against Barcelona. But all of that is dwarved by the battle of Group D undefeateds when CSKA Moscow takes on Unijica Malaga.
For all the strong play by the Russian sides so far, next week is the true test of how dominant the VTB is.