Topic: 23/24 European basketball discussion: Euroleague/BBL/ACB/LegaA/LNB/TBL.. (Read 2660 times)

Well that's nothing new in a late games in a series situations, you also see that in the NBA in game 7 situations. When the pressure is on both teams it's hard to make baskets, that's why they day defense wins championships.

I somehow still think Fener with prevail though, even though the final game of the series will take place in Monaco again.

Didnt expect such a low scoring match also didnt think that Fenerbahce would drop a win at home and now another match goes into game 5 and this is what we like about basketball. Both teams missed o most everything and barely were able to score. Mike James didnt play good at all but got that clutch 3 in the end. Turkish fans continue to make stupid decisions and cause problems in football and now in basketball.

This is unacceptable behavior by that Monaco player. If he didn't provoke the fans there wouldn't be any problem at the end of the match. When it comes to the match I wasn't expecting us to play this defensive. While we had the court advantage in our hands we should have taken advantage of it with a dominant game.  

Guduric's 3-pointer in the last moments revived our hopes. But we couldn't prevent the last 2 points by Monaco. We should have been able to go for a foul there.

Of course there is no justification about fans attacking the players no matter what. It was just a barbaric act. Monaco's defence was exceptionally good. Psychological superiority is now with Monaco. Fenerbahce are losing games where they don't have high three-point percentage. They are playing with a narrow rotation. The thing is Calathes was great for the whole series about defending Mike James. James' FG percentage is quite low. I wonder what he will do in the next game.

Another series reached Game 5 Tonight we saw another great playoff game. It was very low scoring game, but that's true beauty of playoffs. Such defensive game is something what Fenerbahche preferred, but Monaco won even without playing their typical basketball.
Sad that such great game was ruined by accident in the end. Fenerbahche fans attacked Monaco players. It wasn't  shown on TV what exactly happened, but it looks that Monaco players aren't saint too as they allegedly provoked fans.
https://twitter.com/BasketNews_com/status/1786482732433920144

Fenerbahce Beko had a great performance against Monaco in the last game and did a great job both on offense and defense. With these results, Fenerbahce is now 2-1 in Game 3 of the series. Fenerbahce is the closest team to the Final-Four with Game 4 to be played today.

Guduric's expected contribution to the team, Calathes good play throughout the series, Biberovic and Wilbekin's shooting contributions at critical moments were the factors that led to the win. The Yellow Navy team is the favorite in this match with a huge fan support on its home court. The advantage of being in front, the support of the fans, the pressure on the opponent and the success in the last three games will make Monaco's guard drop. Fenerbahce will have the upper hand especially in the first half and will win the game. Thus, they will welcome back the Final-Four after a five year hiatus.

Barca really was a disgrace after the 1st quarter.
I mean really, just scoring 35 points in 30 minutes after scoring 23 in the first 10min is beyond crazy. The stats for this game also are quite crazy. You would think the winning team get way more shots off, or more free throws, or less turnovers, but no.
They both shot 65 shots and Olympiakos even had 1 more turnover in this game, AND 6 less free throws .

The stat of the game though for me the the free throw % by Barcelona, shooting 7/17, hahaha.
If you can't even make these how do you want to be competitive.

Now it's a deciding game 5 in Barcelona, guess it's an even matchup for this on.

That hardcore win by Olympiacos is just huge and now anything can happen in game 5 and their confidence must be huge after this heavy win. Panathiankos same with game 5 and i think they will win at home and go to the final 4. While the Oly vs Bar match anything can happen. This season we have some intresting matchups in the playoffs and cant wait to see the results of the game 5

Wow, it's unexpected that Olympiacos destroyed Barcelona so easy when previous games were so close. 17-0 run in 1st half decided game and it looked that Barca gave up early, already thinking about Game 5.
We will have game 5 between Panathinaikos and Maccabi too. In 4th quarter there was moment when it looked that Maccabi controls the game and will win this series. But in the end, PAO took control over and won the game.
Euroleague playoffs couldn't be better than this. Now we only need Game 5 between Monaco and Fenerbahche.

I don't want to believe in similar conspiracy theories. And AFAIK, money from TV rights doesn't belongs on how many games they play, they have fixed contracts

I had a discussion with a colleague the other day about Euroleague and how uneventful it is. Let me explain...
He claimed that since it's a closed league, it's in their interest to participate in some minor match fixing so they earn more from tv rights and licenses. For example, with matches at this stage running at a best of three, if any team was to win within the first three matches, it would have left the last two matches never played with their opponent already knocked out.

So, at the stage where matches are a best of three, we see teams go head to head with each other and appear to win just barely enough so it seems believable that they might lose next match. This is a very different story to what we normally see on competitive leagues that aren't seeded from a closed list like Euroleague is. Do you think this accusation makes sense?

Of course this isn't the outright match fixing like we see it in football where teams can also determine the exact score, but rather only who wins certain matches. The rest of the league might very well be legit because certain matches in a best of three don't make a difference, they can just decide who wins/loses for two matches based on the first two and still keep the rest competitive. Maybe it's true but will we ever really know.

Oh, I already thought that Baskonia can win this game and not end series 3:0. But Real is Real, similar like in football. It was enough for them to play 1.5 good quarters to win game and reach Final 4 in shortest possible way.

Congrats! Even tough 78 points doesn't looks something special, this game was about defense. It's one of lowest scoring games for Monaco this season. When Monaco made a run in 4th quarter, Fenerbahche managed to respond. And finally, at least one game without any contraversies, unlike yesterday

We did it!    We managed to win home in Game 3 to lead the series by 2-1. As we are the seeded team we have a valuable advantage in our hands from now on. Even if this series extends to Game 5 I believe in my team to defeat Monaco to reach Final Four stage.

By the way I must say that I'm surprised with Maccabi Tel Aviv's performance so far. Despite Panathinaikos' much better regular season performance we can't see the same impact in this series. Maccabi Tel Aviv are only 1 win away from winning the series.

In the first two games of the series, Fenerbahce Beko executed the strategy they wanted and took the court advantage. In fact, if they had paid attention to small details in the last period of the second game, they would have won the second game as well. With two games in a row at home, Fenerbahce is close to reaching the Final-Four.
Fenerbahce can use Motley, who didn't play in the first two games, in these games with the home court and crowd advantage, but his status will be known at game time. In Game 2, Monaco's John Brown suffered an injury and his status will be clarified at game time. Fenerbahce has let its opponents off the hook with its effective defense in many games at home this season and this time, unlike the first two games, I think it will be the team that will win with a good start. The team in yellow and blue is the team that is close to the Final-Four.

Yeah these 2 games were wild.
Maccabi was up big midway through the 3rd quarter and when I checked again some minutes later is was suddenly a 6 or 8 point game. Anyway, they managed to win so now they really have it in their own hands. Wouldn't be surprised though if Pana would have a strong response in game 4.

About Olympiacos vs Barcelona, I was surprised Oly was favored this much. Sure they have a stacked roster this season but still, Barcelona shouldn't be underestimated as well. And we have seen why.
So both Greek teams are down 2:1 now, it's gonna need a lot of fight to turn these series around.

Euroleague playoffs is back to action with 3rd games of series. Maccabi continue to play without Baldwin, but so far it wasn't big problem. It was another great game, it looked that Maccabi can win easier as they were leadingalmost whole game, but in the end PAO made comeback. Despite it, Maccabi survived and lead series 2:1
Didn't saw much from Olympiacos - Barcelona game as my attention was on UCL semifinal. It was another very close game. It's incredible how Barca survived in 4th quarter after Olympiacos run, mainly with Abrines 3-pointers. And then in overtime Oly lost game in most stupid possible way - foul on last second. I think it may be crucial game in series.

Nope, it was actually decided just about month ago, so, such location is even more strange:
https://www.eurohoops.net/en/fiba-champions-league/1647806/basketball-champions-league-final-four-2024-belgrade-serbia/
Back to the basketball, it's getting boring that this tournament is dominated by mediacore (with all respect) Spanish teams. In the final I will support Unicaja, it would be their 1st trophy. On the other hand, you can't not love Marcelinho Huertas who being 40 years old become MVP of whole tournament.

Well the final four location is decided before the season even starts, at least that's what I think.

The last 2 years the final 4 was hosted in Spain ( Bilbao and Malaga ) so it's obvious they can't bring it back to Spain for the 3rd year in a row. 

Anyway, just watched the recaps of the games and to be honest, they were not too exciting, haha. Both the favourites won so, that's what it is. We will see a battle of the Spanish "best of the rest" in this one.

Barcelona - Olympiacos and Monaco - Fenerbahche both series is tied 1:1. You couldn't ask anything better from playoffs.
After halftime it looked that Monaco have no chance to win, their 3rd quarter was so poor, but 4th quarter was already complete opposite. Would be very surprised if this series will end before game 5 because we see fight of same level teams.
Barcelona - Olympiacos, today we already saw different kind of energy and intensity from Barca than in Game 1. They showed some elite defence tonight.

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Does anyone follow BCL Final 4? Both semifinals were great, but favorites Tenerife and Unicaja won. But for me it doesn't makes sense, why they make Final 4 in Belgrade when there is 3 Spanish and 1 Greek teams is playing and nothing what could be interesting for locals.

It was really close from the first leg already.    I didn't like our performance against Monaco in the first half but especially thanks to our third quarter performance we managed to come back and even win by OT. Starting by a win without court advantage is really valuable for us. However the second game is tomorrow and I have a bad feeling about it that we will lose this time. 

Monaco had a better regular season period than us. So it would still be a nice start even if it comes to 1-1 before the court advantage passes to us.

Panathinaikos tied series with Maccabi and now it goes to Belgrade. 1st half was some ups and downs, Maccabi dominating in 1st quarter and then PAO respondin in 2nd. In general, Panathinaikos looked better, but in 4th quarter there was moment when it looked that they can collapse. But it didn't happened. Career night of Sloukas and Papapetrou becoming unexpected X factor.
Baskonia tried their best, they were close to Real significant part of game, but eventually Real run away. Simply different level.

Too bad that you didn't made this as self-moderated topic, but I guess that if such posts aren't often, it's not big issue.