Eurobasket 2017 SLOVENIA takes the gold

[a-French-Fan]

What a win for Finland. Lauri Markkanen and Jamar Wilson were amazingly clutch in the 4th and OT. Tuukka Kotti and Sasu Salin were really solid throughout the game and kept us afloat when we couldn't get it going offensively. Koponen didn't score a lot today but he created a lot of opportunities for the rest of the team (8 assists). Shawn Heff had major foul trouble throughout the game and only played around 15 minutes. Erik Murphy had a poor game.

Finland didn't win this game because they shot well (as has happened in the past). On the contrary, our 3-point shooting was poor for most of the night (with the exception of the 4th and OT where we did knock down some key 3s). Finland won today due to its good defense. We forced France to commit 23 turnovers and that ended up being enough to counter the difference in FTs (28 to 13) and rebounding (44 to 32).

Finland defended pretty well tonight, but France needn't anyone to force it to commit turnovers and ... Missing easy lay-up!!

[Nuntius]

And we ended with Westermann on the floor!! Like if Collet expected a defeat as a warning ...

Westermann wasn't bad. He played good defense on Koponen. That said, Jackson was as good defensively and better offensively so he could have played more.

Finland defended pretty well tonight, but France needn't anyone to force it to commit turnovers and ... Missing easy lay-up!!

That may be true but defense has always been a sore spot for Finland. Finland doesn't really have a defensive stopper (Shawn Huff is probably the best defender the team has) and a lot of its players are undersized for their position. They are a scrappy team but today's defense was much better than expected.

[ReKon]

I saw all of the games of the group my national team is in (Greece).

Greece was pretty horrible in the first half... Absolutely embarrasing performace in the second quarter to the point where Iceland were withing striking distance. Thankfully the Antetokoumpo brother who is there gave a lot of energy as he always does and played some great defence. Pappas was also crucial and in the second half Iceland couldn't keep up. Overall a pretty meaningless game but watching the other games of the group can t see us not finishing 3rd

Finland - France was really entertaining. Even though Kopponen underperformed Markkanen gave a show. He seemed extremely agile for his height. France had so many turnovers and dumb plays ( Heurtel's foul at the end of the 1st q for example) and that s why they lost. Still some great performances from De Colo and Fournier and some flashes from Diaw and Heurtel

Slovenia with a strong showing from Dragic. If they had his brother as well who is nothing special but a great option nonetheless they could be a dark horse to go further in the tournament. Not extremely impressed by Doncic since Poland is the second weakest team in the group but he will show up at some point in the tournament.

As for the other group a great win by Georgia who is a really well coached team and a cohecent unit. Sengelia did great and Valanciunas as per usual underwhelmed. This guy must have a big confidence problem because he should be killing most of the centers in this tournament and he has a great pass first point guard in Kalnietis. Big performance by Schroeder he will need to keep it up if Germany is to advance. It s probably going to be betwen them and Israel. (Italy vs Israel not sure what happened there from the boxscore i can tell that Italy will be once more go as ar as their stars take it and in this case Bellinelli and Datome).

Great first day with two huge upsets and some big performances overall. Tomorrow the main event will be Serbia vs Latvia. I expect an easy win for Serbia but want to see how Porzingis will do against one of the smartest squads in European basketball.

[Nuntius]

Greece was pretty horrible in the first half... Absolutely embarrasing performace in the second quarter to the point where Iceland were withing striking distance. Thankfully the Antetokoumpo brother who is there gave a lot of energy as he always does and played some great defence. Pappas was also crucial and in the second half Iceland couldn't keep up. Overall a pretty meaningless game but watching the other games of the group can t see us not finishing 3rd

It's pretty obvious that our coach just isn't that good. Iceland was doubling Bourousis on the coach (not unlike what the Miami Heat did back in 13-14) and it took him ages to adjust. Thanasis should have been subbed in much earlier than he did and Agravanis should have probably played more. We didn't need Bourousis for this game.

Outside of that, we haven't gelled very well yet. We'll see how it goes.

( Heurtel's foul at the end of the 1st q for example)

If they ever take a vote for the dumbest foul of the tournament that would take the cake.

[THE J0KER]

Great day for almost all NBA players which played today.

Here is from FIBA-EUROPE official site current TOP10 by efficiency index:
32 Dennis Schroder (GER)
27 Goran Dragic (SLO)
23 Evan Fournier (FRA)
22 Lauri Markkanen (FIN), Mateusz Ponitka (POL)
21 Nando De Colo (FRA), Tornike Shengelia (GEO)
20 Nikos Pappas (GRE)
19 Marco Belinelli (ITA)
18 Omri Casspi (ISR), Jonas Valanciunas (LTU)…

6 NBA players + new rookie Markkanen

[ReKon]

Greece was pretty horrible in the first half... Absolutely embarrasing performace in the second quarter to the point where Iceland were withing striking distance. Thankfully the Antetokoumpo brother who is there gave a lot of energy as he always does and played some great defence. Pappas was also crucial and in the second half Iceland couldn't keep up. Overall a pretty meaningless game but watching the other games of the group can t see us not finishing 3rd

It's pretty obvious that our coach just isn't that good. Iceland was doubling Bourousis on the coach (not unlike what the Miami Heat did back in 13-14) and it took him ages to adjust. Thanasis should have been subbed in much earlier than he did and Agravanis should have probably played more. We didn't need Bourousis for this game.

Outside of that, we haven't gelled very well yet. We'll see how it goes.

( Heurtel's foul at the end of the 1st q for example)

If they ever take a vote for the dumbest foul of the tournament that would take the cake.

I agree with your first point but it goes back to what i have said about this team in the first place. Too many egos. You leave Bourousis out who is the most senior player in this team alongside Printezis and i feel like there is an outrage. I do agree about the coach but it is what it is at this point. In any case i don't feel like the game against Iceland is going to show us anything about this team but still saw some defensive lapses that would not be forgiven by a team like France. Finland's win made the situation a bit more complicated as France was supposed to be the favorites to go first out of this group but now it s pretty wide open if you ask me.

Heurtel's foul might be the dumbest play of this whole tournament when it's all said and done

[Veyron]

Good lord we have no heart. I'm happy for Finland though, they have some of the best fans I ever saw live.

I wouldn't be so hard on your team. You're still good and you will most likely advance to the next phase. It's just that Finland is a lot better than people give them credit for. They're one of the most well-coached teams in the tournament and with Markkanen on their roster they have options that they didn't have a couple of years ago.

You do seem to have some problems on your frontline, though. Seraphin didn't look healthy, Lauvergne was not good and Poirier was straight-up horrible. Labeyrie, on the other hand, was a revelation. He was really, really solid. I have no idea why he didn't start in the OT.

ANd they are not missing half roster like most of the teams on EB.

[SportsGuy8]

I just posted this somewhere else, copy-pasting it here also to add my 2 cents about Slovenia:

Slovenia has no depth. It's simply a 3 man show and even the 3rd man (Randolph) is overrated. He's still the exact same old Anthony Randolph, making same old brain-farts ... Slovenia had depth in the past (at one point 5+ NBA players combined with several Euroleague stars; incredible for such a small country), but they had no true star so they struggled in knockout stages. Now they have a true star (Dragic), another upcoming star (Doncic), but then after you add Randolph, there's a very steep drop.

Dragic isn't going to be able to dominate vs. top teams because he's not a shooter. FIBA can be very hard for penetrating guards because of the rules, even more so when they can truly concentrate on him.

does Anthony Randolph has Slovenian descent? I don't understand how he could get the Slovenian nationality (he has never played in the Slovenian league).

Nope, but he has Slovenian money, which seems to work better.

I don't think they're paying him anything. That doesn't mean he doesn't have financial incentives, though. He's going to benefit from having EU passport, meaning he's not going to count as a foreigner anymore, so his team (right now Real Madrid) is going to be able to sign another foreigner (most likely another American). I'm sure he's going to get a nice bonus from Real because of it.

He also thinks he's going to benefit from being additionally exposed to the scouts (that are going to be watching Doncic closely, obviously), although I think that's a bit delusional. NBA teams know everything about him and it's not like he truly improved, as I mentioned above.

[UcanUwill]

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[Nuntius]

I agree with your first point but it goes back to what i have said about this team in the first place. Too many egos. You leave Bourousis out who is the most senior player in this team alongside Printezis and i feel like there is an outrage.

Yeah, you're right. It shouldn't be like that but that's how it unfortunately is.

Heurtel's foul might be the dumbest play of this whole tournament when it's all said and done

Absolutely. And it ended up costing them too.

[Nuntius]

Good lord we have no heart. I'm happy for Finland though, they have some of the best fans I ever saw live.

I wouldn't be so hard on your team. You're still good and you will most likely advance to the next phase. It's just that Finland is a lot better than people give them credit for. They're one of the most well-coached teams in the tournament and with Markkanen on their roster they have options that they didn't have a couple of years ago.

You do seem to have some problems on your frontline, though. Seraphin didn't look healthy, Lauvergne was not good and Poirier was straight-up horrible. Labeyrie, on the other hand, was a revelation. He was really, really solid. I have no idea why he didn't start in the OT.

ANd they are not missing half roster like most of the teams on EB.

Yeah, Finland isn't missing anyone. They have a full roster.

[UcanUwill]

Watching Great Britain game and I just remembered, wasn't Ben Gordon supposed to play for them?

[The_Brecht]

Let's go Belgium!

[JohnWillow]

Watching Great Britain game and I just remembered, wasn't Ben Gordon supposed to play for them?

He didn't show up. They were waiting for him, so he did not answer whether he will play or nah to the coaching stuff and they just cut him.

[JohnWillow]

Hey.... Now I remember this Nelson guy who is playing for GB, he by himself a few years ago beat Spain in European championship U-18, he was hitting almost everything that day lol

[JohnWillow]

Adam Hanga looks good. Croatia vs Hungary 20-20 after 1st.

[the_other_guy]

Watching Great Britain game and I just remembered, wasn't Ben Gordon supposed to play for them?

They are waiting for him since early 2000's.

[juanc]

I just posted this somewhere else, copy-pasting it here also to add my 2 cents about Slovenia:

Slovenia has no depth. It's simply a 3 man show and even the 3rd man (Randolph) is overrated. He's still the exact same old Anthony Randolph, making same old brain-farts ... Slovenia had depth in the past (at one point 5+ NBA players combined with several Euroleague stars; incredible for such a small country), but they had no true star so they struggled in knockout stages. Now they have a true star (Dragic), another upcoming star (Doncic), but then after you add Randolph, there's a very steep drop.

Dragic isn't going to be able to dominate vs. top teams because he's not a shooter. FIBA can be very hard for penetrating guards because of the rules, even more so when they can truly concentrate on him.

does Anthony Randolph has Slovenian descent? I don't understand how he could get the Slovenian nationality (he has never played in the Slovenian league).

Nope, but he has Slovenian money, which seems to work better.

I don't think they're paying him anything. That doesn't mean he doesn't have financial incentives, though. He's going to benefit from having EU passport, meaning he's not going to count as a foreigner anymore, so his team (right now Real Madrid) is going to be able to sign another foreigner (most likely another American). I'm sure he's going to get a nice bonus from Real because of it.

He also thinks he's going to benefit from being additionally exposed to the scouts (that are going to be watching Doncic closely, obviously), although I think that's a bit delusional. NBA teams know everything about him and it's not like he truly improved, as I mentioned above.

Slovenia has no depth? Yes there are not many stars, but there are many soid players... Dragič just showed us that he can win games on his own. The others just had a bad game.
Dončič had a bad game(poor shooting), Randolph had a bad game, Prepelič has many reserves, so do Muric, Vidmar, Blažič and Čančar.
For example Rebec, that didn't play a minute yesterday would be the 1st PG in half of the other countries(even Croatia).
With one player having a good game and other 11 with a bad game, Slovenia still managed to have control the whole game and take the win(even if it was against Poland)

[UcanUwill]

Game of the day starts in 10 minutes. Serbia-Latvia.

[jinxed]

Where are you guys watching these games?