Eurobasket 2022 (daily OP updates), day 11, all quarter finals teams known, Italy shocks Europe, eliminates Serbia

[Luke Skyowner]

Not in love with the finnish rotations, when Markkanen, Salin and Maxhuni sits at the same time we have zero offense especially in the halfcourt.

Paid off i guess. Eitherway it's a Marksman world, we just live in it

[GeorgeSears]

Putting Saric on Markannen probably wasn't the best idea.

[BelgradeNugget]

Interesting thing - everybody declared group D as weakest one, but 2 teams from that group (Poland and Finland) are in quarter finals now

[Nuntius]

Markkanen was transcendent today. I did think that Finland has a good chance at beating Croatia (and they also have a decent chance against Spain, imo) but I definitely didn't expect Lauri to have a performance of that caliber.

We have seen some amazing scoring performance in this EuroBasket so far. Giannis with 41, Luka with 47 and now Lauri with 43. It has been awesome.

[knicksfan974]

I would say that Finland has a legit shot at beating Spain and advancing to the semis, something that would have sounded quite crazy before the tournament. Some extremely interesting basketball games coming up next week.

[Nuntius]

Interesting thing - everybody declared group D as weakest one, but 2 teams from that group (Poland and Finland) are in quarter finals now

I don't think that group D was the weakest. The one thing that one could say about group D was that Serbia was by far the strongest team in the group and that none of the teams there would be able to challenge them. And that was true but it was more of a testament to Serbia's strength. It wasn't an indication that the rest of the teams (well, other than the Netherlands, of course) were weak. Finland, Israel, Poland and the Czech Republic are all dangerous teams as Finland and Poland have already proved.

The one thing that could be definitely said about the groups was that group B was by far the strongest one. I don't think that there was a significant difference between the power levels of the other 3 groups.

[Taikuri]

I would say that Finland has a legit shot at beating Spain and advancing to the semis, something that would have sounded quite crazy before the tournament. Some extremely interesting basketball games coming up next week.

Same as before Croatia game. Spain is the favorite, but Finland strikes as an underdog and goes to top-4. I feel like it will go that way. It's not the same old Spain anymore as it used to be with Gasols and Rubio and so on.

[Taikuri]

Thanks to Mr. Bogdanovic for missing that free throw. Croatia certainly avoided Serbia and Slovenia now by getting eliminated . Gotta help your new teammate Larry Marksman at the same time.

Finland is getting new young players coming for next World Cup as well. Some of them might already be in the team then. Things are looking good now.

[edededtut]

One of the more surprising things this tournament to me, was the fact Markovic is Croatia's closing center, not Zubac. And do not forget Zizic was cut all together, is this Markovic kid that good, I know nothing about him?

Matkovic is a great athlete, quick on his feet.
Zubac would be run off the floor if he played again this fast paced finish team.

Finland doesn’t really have a center so zubac not playing was a big boost. Really impressive work on the boards, usually teams like Croatia eat Finland alive under the basket.

Maybe zubac would have had issues with Finland’s pace but it really works both ways.

[lambchop]

Considering all the great players they produce decade after decade, it's truly crazy how none of them are point guards. Jasikevicius and Marciulonis are the only Lithuanian stars I can remember at PG. Kalnietis was good but definitely not a star.

I kinda feel Jasikevicius kinda screwed up their PG development. Skills that made Jasikevicius great are unlearnable, actual learnable skills like good ball handling was Jasikevicius weakness. So many young kids grew up thinking if they learn no look passes, that will make them great, and we got a generation of pointguards who literally cant dribble the ball (Čižauskas and the rest). Lithuania's best 1 on 1 perimeter guy of the last 20 years, Ramūnas Šiškauskas, didnt' even play basketball until he was 16, never went through screwy academies, but was great because of sheer talent.

I kinda feel like the PG problem is a general european problem at the moment. If we take a timespan from 2005 to 2015, we basically had: Parker, Calderon, Rodriguez, Rubio, Spanoulis, Lakovic, Jasikevicius, Teodosic, Diamantidis, Kalnietis, Papaloukas, Dragic

Now probably only Doncic, Dragic, Rubio, Schröder, Heurtel fit in that group. It seems as though European countries have specialised in developing multi skilled tall players who excel in different areas, but aren't necessarily point guards. So guys like Jokic, Wagner, Fontecchio, Vezenkov, Sabonis etc. That leaves a lot of countries with holes at PG that they fill with americans cause they still produce PGs or at least proficient ball handlers who can break down the defense on a consistent basis.

[Taikuri]

I don't think he's officially retired, though. Didn't he sign a contract in March 2022? He is 38 years old so he definitely could retire any moment but has he officially announced it? If he hasn't announced it, is Finland even allowed to attempt to naturalize another player? Aren't teams only restricted to one naturalized player or does this restriction only counts for players who are actually called up for the team? I'm unclear on that last part which is why I'm asking.

My understanding is that you can naturalize as many players as you want but you can only register one for a specific basketball game or a tournament.

He's complete done. You can see it from his instagram post. Check here:



Dunno if that instagram post is showing. For me it doesn't show. Not sure how to link them. Copy pasting that should do it.

instagram.com/p/Cf4Be1Qulqg/

[DanEu]

Considering all the great players they produce decade after decade, it's truly crazy how none of them are point guards. Jasikevicius and Marciulonis are the only Lithuanian stars I can remember at PG. Kalnietis was good but definitely not a star.

I kinda feel Jasikevicius kinda screwed up their PG development. Skills that made Jasikevicius great are unlearnable, actual learnable skills like good ball handling was Jasikevicius weakness. So many young kids grew up thinking if they learn no look passes, that will make them great, and we got a generation of pointguards who literally cant dribble the ball (Čižauskas and the rest). Lithuania's best 1 on 1 perimeter guy of the last 20 years, Ramūnas Šiškauskas, didnt' even play basketball until he was 16, never went through screwy academies, but was great because of sheer talent.

I kinda feel like the PG problem is a general european problem at the moment. If we take a timespan from 2005 to 2015, we basically had: Parker, Calderon, Rodriguez, Rubio, Spanoulis, Lakovic, Jasikevicius, Teodosic, Diamantidis, Kalnietis, Papaloukas, Dragic

Now probably only Doncic, Dragic, Rubio, Schröder, Heurtel fit in that group. It seems as though European countries have specialised in developing multi skilled tall players who excel in different areas, but aren't necessarily point guards. So guys like Jokic, Wagner, Fontecchio, Vezenkov, Sabonis etc. That leaves a lot of countries with holes at PG that they fill with americans cause they still produce PGs or at least proficient ball handlers who can break down the defense on a consistent basis.

I think the problem starts at the club levels.
Why go trough the effort of developing a pg( the most difficult position to exell at) and risk bad results when you can just grab an american pg out of college who already went through trial by fire.

[BelgradeNugget]

Considering all the great players they produce decade after decade, it's truly crazy how none of them are point guards. Jasikevicius and Marciulonis are the only Lithuanian stars I can remember at PG. Kalnietis was good but definitely not a star.

I kinda feel Jasikevicius kinda screwed up their PG development. Skills that made Jasikevicius great are unlearnable, actual learnable skills like good ball handling was Jasikevicius weakness. So many young kids grew up thinking if they learn no look passes, that will make them great, and we got a generation of pointguards who literally cant dribble the ball (Čižauskas and the rest). Lithuania's best 1 on 1 perimeter guy of the last 20 years, Ramūnas Šiškauskas, didnt' even play basketball until he was 16, never went through screwy academies, but was great because of sheer talent.

I kinda feel like the PG problem is a general european problem at the moment. If we take a timespan from 2005 to 2015, we basically had: Parker, Calderon, Rodriguez, Rubio, Spanoulis, Lakovic, Jasikevicius, Teodosic, Diamantidis, Kalnietis, Papaloukas, Dragic

Now probably only Doncic, Dragic, Rubio, Schröder, Heurtel fit in that group. It seems as though European countries have specialised in developing multi skilled tall players who excel in different areas, but aren't necessarily point guards. So guys like Jokic, Wagner, Fontecchio, Vezenkov, Sabonis etc. That leaves a lot of countries with holes at PG that they fill with americans cause they still produce PGs or at least proficient ball handlers who can break down the defense on a consistent basis.

Micić?

[Sunlight]

Doncic 38min 47pts
Markannen 32min 43pts

[Taikuri]

One of the more surprising things this tournament to me, was the fact Markovic is Croatia's closing center, not Zubac. And do not forget Zizic was cut all together, is this Markovic kid that good, I know nothing about him?

Matkovic is a great athlete, quick on his feet.
Zubac would be run off the floor if he played again this fast paced finish team.

Finland doesn’t really have a center so zubac not playing was a big boost. Really impressive work on the boards, usually teams like Croatia eat Finland alive under the basket.

Maybe zubac would have had issues with Finland’s pace but it really works both ways.

Finland was also missing it's new good big player called Oliver Nkamhoua, who had to leave for University/NCAA duties (Tennessee) right after the World Cup qualifier window that was right before the Eurobasket tournament. It was a big loss for Finland. The guy had an impressive breakthrough to become a permanent piece for team Finland this summer. Luckily it's his last year in the NCAA so he will be there for Finland in the World Cup.

[Taikuri]

Doncic 38min 47pts
Markannen 32min 43pts

Doncic 198 minutes in the tournament. 168 points.

Markkanen 164 minutes in the tournament. 167 points.

I'll admit that group B had harder opposition and Luka does some PG duties as well, as in passing and so on. Markkanen however has been surprisingly good in defense as well in this tournament.

https://www.fiba.basketball/eurobasket/2022/player/Luka-Doncic

https://www.fiba.basketball/eurobasket/2022/player/Lauri-Markkanen

Markkanen should be a lock in the all-star five of the tournament already. He's been such an MVP for Finland.

Markkanen-Jokic-Giannis

Luka+Micic/Schröder/Lorenzo Brown?

[Finfro]

Watch on YouTube

[Dirk]

Watch on YouTube

He looks incredible. 00:53 coast to coast.

[Mavrelous]

Italian coach about to have a heart attack

[Taikuri]

Everybody talking naturalized players...did they change the rules mid-tournament or what?

It will stay as a topic of discussion until it's reworked or removed. It's just wrong.