First of all Serbia and France are lacking a lot of their stars. Especially France without Parker, Gobert and Batum is not a fear.
Serbia always stays dangerous even without Jokic.
Spain is the only team that brought every star to it's roster. So Spain is by far the frontrunner.
Our problem is that Serbvia is the most likely opponent in a quarter final (Greece will make the quarter final for sure).
Serbia with their BB IQ have found the way to beat us.
The way is simple. Zone Defense and let us shoot while having good shooters
With this tactic they eliminate teh strenghts of Giannis and exploit our bad shooting. That simple.
Unless Giannis activates Beast Mode and drives through the paint killing the serbian frontcourt and getting them to foul trouble
we will have big problems against Serbia (like allways).
In the 2005's and following years we had good shooters and a ton of Guards on All-European Level with lot's of BB IQ.
In this years 2005 and after we beat Serbia severall times but now our PG's are just mediocre and can't shot on a high level.
Calathes can't make a FT to save his life. Sloukas is by far the best shooter (any comparison to Ruby is ridiculous --> Sloukas is Ray Allen combined with Step Curry in relation to Rubio
)Mantzaris can hit occasionally Spot Up 3s (especially in the clutch --> sometimes wonder why he hits the in the clutch only
)Pappas is more of a driving type guy.
Dorsey is young but still has something that we don't have --> reliable Shooting (not only 3s but also Midrange Game).
For some reasons he will not be available (would need to write 3 pages on this issue)
Our Bigs with Bourousis and Papagiannis will be OK. Bourousis has and will always play good for the NT. I have zero!!!
concerns that he will not be our best Center. He always plays his heart out for the NT. That did not change in 365 days.
Papagiannis will be solid on European Level (not enough for Gasol Brothers but enough for a lot of other teams).
Bogris is straight up ****. Has been, will be. Too small, too fat, not athletic, too slow, wrong mindset, not enough talent.
I don't care about his "great" season in Spain or the minor level Champions League and ****. I hope he will not make the final roster (unfortunately he will)or at least play minor minutes as 3rd Center.
He should concentrate on the MILF's and let the NT play some ball.
What about Giannis?
Giannis on FIBA Level must play 4 or even 5. Unfortunately we have our best players on this positions (Bourousis/Papagiannis on 5, Printezis 4) so he would take awy minutes from our best players (besides Giannis).
In Defense Giannis MUST play 4 or 5 (Printezis must switch to 3 --> we tried this severall times last year but Switching is difficult for Europeans who learn BB more on a system based approach, Printezis is too tall and slow for most of the 3s in Europe).
So that we can exploit his Rebounding, Blocking, Rim Protection etc. After Rebounding he could run the Fast Break on his own
and go for some easy points and drawing some fouls.
In half court offense he could switch with Printezis and go for some Post Up's (we did this last year also).
No Point Forward experiments with Giannis anymore. This is FIBA and not NBA. Let Giannis play in the paint and dominate his opponents.
Giannis is tall and big enough for 98% of the European Bigs. The other 2% are Marc Gasol, Gobert.
And even with Marc Giannis could stand his Ground as far as I can remember some mathup's wit the Grizz.
Just Foultrouble would limit Giannis unnecessary when going only against Marc.
Maybe Giannis in the paint can open more free spots for 3s. Sloukas and Mantzaris will hit totally open 3s on a constant basis.
Defense
5 Bourousis/Papagiannis
4 Giannis
3 Printezis/papapetrou/papanikolaou
2 Thanasis
1 Calathes/Mantzaris
Good look against such a team.
Offense is the problem.
How do we find a solution for our shooting problem? This is the main problem.
The answer is Giannis. Let him drive on EVERY possesion. He will draw a foul, create totally open 3s or kill the rim.
This is much better than wathing Calathes dribble the air out of the ball on every possesion oder wathcing Mantzaris bring the ball down the floor in slow motion
Make a long story short: Let Giannis do everything
