Group C, Day 4, Greece Vs Turkey

[shutup_2]

shutup - I agree with you. Turkey played very well. Congratulations to Turkey for a great performance. But I think it is clear to Greek fans, that Greece could and should have played better in the game. It is not about the result, but the performance. Even if we had won and played badly, I would be concerned. Just as I was concerned after our wins against China and Puerto Rico. We have to reach a high level of play and quickly. I hope we do it in the next 2 games.

Christodoulou, I was talking about the performance too. Did Greece play really bad in Turkey game?? Honestly I did not watch Greece`s first two games but anyways I may be wrong. I also don`t believe Turkish team is that good. It is just they played well in Greece game. Turkish team defended very well. This is not a coincedence they did it before. I think that was the main reason for Greek players` bad shot selection. I don`t think Greece defence was that bad either. Turkish offence was too good. I am not sure they can repeat it in the following games.

Briefly I wouldn`t be surprised if Greece beat Spain Argentina even US and go all the way to the final. That`s the impression I got from last night`s game. As I said I may be wrong. I will watch Greece more carefully from now on.

 

[christodoulou762]

good article on yesterday's game:
http://www.sport-fm.gr/article/290307

Kazlauskas has made some disastrous decisions...Printezis doesn't play at all. So why not have Vasiliadis on the squad. Why play Diamantidis at 2-3 and not 1. Why play Spanoulis at 1? etc...

 

[chrisfiss2]

i'll give some stats to show Greece's unorthodox way of playing:
2p attemtps per game:
Greece: 26.7 (lowest of all countries)
Serbia, Usa, Argentina, Lithuania, Turkey: 35-43

3p attempts pg:
Greece: 34 (highest of all countries)
Serbia, Usa, Argentina, Spain, Lithuania: 22-25

Of course you'll say Greece shoots more 3ps because opponents play zone defense against them. Well thats what happens when you have not prepared any systems to penetrate the zone. It is like all of a sudden Greece is the only team in the tournament that doesnt have top class 3p shooters and everyone decides to play zone.

Accumulated stats:
Diamantidis: 2/4 2p 6/22 3p
Spanoulis: 7/11 2p 8/18 3p
Zisis: 5/11 2p 6/16 3p
Bourousis: 9/18 2p 6/19 3p

For me this look an unprepared team, with no strategy to play against zone, which on top of that has lost its ability to play good defense. Coach Kazlauskas is to blame most about this situation.

 

[GR8BBALL2]

Some critique in good faith from the past 3 games:
* Greek players looks lazy on both ends of the floor; on offense they opt for the easy 3pt shot, with no on/off the ball movement, on defense there is minimal press especially against a team that plays with many big bodies in their line-up.
* I'd like to see guards with fresh legs and/good defenders, that's DD and Calathes as was mentioned before, play more.
* Also, kaimakoglou brings some energy on the defense, put him in for longer stretches.
* In general, everyone knows that if you want to apply press defense you need a longer rotation so you can maintain your intensity. Kazla needs to extend his rotation.
* Also the mid-range game is a long-time weakness of Greek bball. IMO it depends on several factors; fundamentals like dribbling (Greek SFs and, partially, SGs traditionally look awkward when trying to put the ball on the floor), and quickness-athleticism so you can get closer to the basket before the defender. VSpan is the only good slasher of Greece because of the latter but he is not consistent with his decision making.

 

[christodoulou762]

Some critique in good faith from the past 3 games:
* Greek players looks lazy on both ends of the floor; on offense they opt for the easy 3pt shot, with no on/off the ball movement, on defense there is minimal press especially against a team that plays with many big bodies in their line-up.
* I'd like to see guards with fresh legs and/good defenders, that's DD and Calathes as was mentioned before, play more.
* Also, kaimakoglou brings some energy on the defense, put him in for longer stretches.
* In general, everyone knows that if you want to apply press defense you need a longer rotation so you can maintain your intensity. Kazla needs to extend his rotation.
* Also the mid-range game is a long-time weakness of Greek bball. IMO it depends on several factors; fundamentals like dribbling (Greek SFs and, partially, SGs traditionally look awkward when trying to put the ball on the floor), and quickness-athleticism so you can get closer to the basket before the defender. VSpan is the only good slasher of Greece because of the latter but he is not consistent with his decision making.

a very good analysis!

 

[christodoulou762]

i'll give some stats to show Greece's unorthodox way of playing:
2p attemtps per game:
Greece: 26.7 (lowest of all countries)
Serbia, Usa, Argentina, Lithuania, Turkey: 35-43

3p attempts pg:
Greece: 34 (highest of all countries)
Serbia, Usa, Argentina, Spain, Lithuania: 22-25

Of course you'll say Greece shoots more 3ps because opponents play zone defense against them. Well thats what happens when you have not prepared any systems to penetrate the zone. It is like all of a sudden Greece is the only team in the tournament that doesnt have top class 3p shooters and everyone decides to play zone.

Accumulated stats:
Diamantidis: 2/4 2p 6/22 3p
Spanoulis: 7/11 2p 8/18 3p
Zisis: 5/11 2p 6/16 3p
Bourousis: 9/18 2p 6/19 3p

For me this look an unprepared team, with no strategy to play against zone, which on top of that has lost its ability to play good defense. Coach Kazlauskas is to blame most about this situation.

eye-opening statistics!

 

[TB-Fan2]

Some people can not see the main point. Greek Team had great performances in last years. It ws a golden generation. Papaloukas, Papadopoulos, Chatzivretas, Kakiouzis, DD, Zizis, Dikoudis, Tsartsaris. As you see most of the players of this generation are not playing for NT anymore. The ones that still play are not in best shape (will end their NT career soon). So dear Greek Fans you have to accept that this new team is not as good as the previous one. You have to build a new golden generation and I'm sure you will. But it will take some years.

For example we needed 5 years to build this team. Ilyasova, Erden, Savas, Asik, Akyol are all players of one generation build up by Tanjevic. We mixed them with our experienced players and now this team has to go his way.

 

[klakis2]

Kazlauskas teams Greece vs China!

Kazlauskas teams Greece vs China!

Is it only me of after 3 games Greek team starts looking like china 2008 olympic team?just change the name Yao with the name Big Sofo ,tartsaris bourousis.mr kazlauskas the greek players can do alot lot lot lot more than the chinese. The big guy under the basket and everyone around him shooting threes is not basketball of at least the basketball that we are used to see from that team. Inrelevantly to what the outcome of this team is i would really like to the old good Greek playing style! Breaking bones tough defence and many many pick n rolls. I cant believe that we couldnt stop a single palyer who has 6/6 threes.
Unfortunatelly mr kazlauskas is having the worst tournament of his career!
Let's hope that will change and finally we will see some defence!

 

[g.g2]

Some people can not see the main point. Greek Team had great performances in last years. It ws a golden generation. Papaloukas, Papadopoulos, Chatzivretas, Kakiouzis, DD, Zizis, Dikoudis, Tsartsaris. As you see most of the players of this generation are not playing for NT anymore. The ones that still play are not in best shape (will end their NT career soon). So dear Greek Fans you have to accept that this new team is not as good as the previous one. You have to build a new golden generation and I'm sure you will. But it will take some years.

For example we needed 5 years to build this team. Ilyasova, Erden, Savas, Asik, Akyol are all players of one generation build up by Tanjevic. We mixed them with our experienced players and now this team has to go his way.

My god you people, made a win at home and you believe you are world best..LOL

 

[Perseus2]

the fact is

Turkey won
Iliasova won the game
all Turkish players performed at least 30% more than the other games.
3pointers gave the win

Spanulis was very bad /tired he even lost FT
Tsartsaris avoided responsibilities
we played bad
we had bad luck .

I can't blame Kazla ,it is not Kazla fault when a player 2.13 has better % in 3pts than 2pts ,i can't understand how a player like him looses a lay up ,same for DD.
Sofo was quite good he played 13 min and made 9 points he got 2 non existed fouls.
and i repeat you can't win a team who has 50% in 3pts
regarding now the 3pts at the end of 1q ,it is not important for the game ,but it was imortany for the psychology of the players ,it is certain that hands are heavier when your behid the score.

 

[chrisfiss2]

My god you people, made a win at home and you believe you are world best..LOL

but he just said his opinion, no arrogance or anything whatsoever in his analysis.

I partially agree although i believe the end of this generation will come after 3-4 years. Hopefully new players will come up and mix with the old ones to keep up in top level. worst case scenario is the 98-03 era where we sucked big time. hopefully the transition between generations will be better this time

 

[Perseus2]

for the next 10 years probably we wont have promblem,Sarikopoylos ,Papanikolaou ,Pappas Sloukas ,Koufos ,Xrisikopoulos

 

[parso2]

Congrats to Turkish team and fans from me as well.The game was exciting for about 25+,as long as our players had the mental power to respond to Turks' superb game.I really believe that until that point Greece was playing really well and the game in overall was one of the best I've witnessed the last years!And I really don't blame our players,I believe that they tried their best but Turks and especially Iliasova were from another planet tonight and with the support of their fantastic crowd,as soon as our players saw that all they tried couldn't stop our opponents then they got dissapointed and lost quite easily in the final period.

+ 1!!!

Thank you for showing that not every Greek fan isn't a homer... sorry but some of the messages are simply ignorant.

 

[parso2]

the fact is

Turkey won
Iliasova won the game
all Turkish players performed at least 30% more than the other games.
3pointers gave the win

Spanulis was very bad /tired he even lost FT
Tsartsaris avoided responsibilities
we played bad
we had bad luck .

I can't blame Kazla ,it is not Kazla fault when a player 2.13 has better % in 3pts than 2pts ,i can't understand how a player like him looses a lay up ,same for DD.
Sofo was quite good he played 13 min and made 9 points he got 2 non existed fouls.
and i repeat you can't win a team who has 50% in 3pts
regarding now the 3pts at the end of 1q ,it is not important for the game ,but it was imortany for the psychology of the players ,it is certain that hands are heavier when your behid the score.

Yeah right... these were given to counter balance him moon-walking to the basket

Folks don't be sore loosers... of course we did win because we made more shots. When you make those shots its talent but when we do its just luck

 

[Perseus2]

Gonlun flopped at least 2 times .

the luck is when you have 6/6 3pts.

 

[Adon2]

....
Accumulated stats:
Diamantidis: 2/4 2p 6/22 3p
Spanoulis: 7/11 2p 8/18 3p
Zisis: 5/11 2p 6/16 3p
Bourousis: 9/18 2p 6/19 3p

For me this look an unprepared team, with no strategy to play against zone, which on top of that has lost its ability to play good defense. Coach Kazlauskas is to blame most about this situation.

Some more statistics (food for thoughts)

Diamantidis 3p% 08-09:49% po:67% 09-10:48% po:40%
Is DD a decent 3p shooter or not?

Let's see how some other good scorers perform in this WBC:
(I took into account the statistics until day4)
Juan Carlos NAVARRO (ESP) 45%, J.Lakovic 29%, S. Becirovic 20%, G. Dragic 36%, P. Prigioni 40%, C. Delfino 24%, J. Barea 29%, M. Teodosic 40%, L. Kleiza 44%

Off course these are not the best % in WBC. But all these players are obliged to take any open shoot available.

DD's statistics in this WBC : 27% !!!!!! Much worse than his usual performance (average % in regular season 48,5% and 53,5% in playoffs for the last 2 years)
Is this Kazla's fault?
Should a player with as high % as DD take any open shoot?

We need always to connect a result with a cause and the cause with the acts of a person (the coach in our case).This is a simplistic determinism.
"The winner is the best and all his decisions were correct!"
"The loser is a useless ash..le,(inferior,incompetent,unable to win,he made all the wrong decisions)"

e.g. Against Turkey the 3p% were:
VSpan 1/5 20%,Zisis 1/5 20%,Fotsis 1/4 25%.

Predictable? I don't think so,since their usual numbers are around 40%. For unknown reasons one player can score one day with high% and another day with 0%.
My question to all "amateur" coaches in this forum,is this:
With exactly the same game style and the USUAL 3p% of our players who would have been the winner?
Furthermore,who would blame the "incompetent" Kazla?

Imo we have to admit that in winning there are uncontrolled underlying reasons.I insist that the fight with the Serbs affected heavily the mentality of our team and I think that it's the main reason for the mutation we observed after that.

(Off course I believe that Kazla is not perfect so far and there are many things in our game we need to improve.)

 

[buzz2]

one shooter = no shooter
it is easy for any team to handle one good shooter.the problem is where the opponent has many solutions and not just one...