To be honest, as much as I love being critical and the two (or better put three) latest games deserved criticism, I am actually more optimistic than I've been before the championship.
And I've got to add, that after the heads cooled down a bit, I've never seen so much dissing of pesimism, or against-our-NT-rants-posts on variousl FB, twitters and such as there are obviously a lot of people realising that those players were the same ones that have beaten Spain and not much has changed. They've lost two games, but let's move forward instead instead of ranting pointlessly over the guys. Considering out national psychological profile, that's actually quite an achievement!!
1st game vs. Czech, was really intense, execution didn't go as planned, but those were a matter of luck, nervousness due first game, Czech's didn't suit us all that much and referees brought the game to the close end with some really below the level decisions
2nd game vs. Spain, basicaly one of the best (if not the best) performances I've seen at this championship and Spain wasn't even playing bad, they've had worse games than that in my opinion, they've left one narrow path at the end of the game for Dragič and Nachbar and those two took advantage of it
3rd game vs. Georgia, intensity was visibly cooling down, nevertheless I wasn't afraid for the result through the whole game
4th game, Croatia, watching it again that last action was actually superb, Nachbar should've end it differently, but even with 3 3pointers in the OT we've almost came back. And this was a game where basicaly Croatia was playing our style and we had to play on set defense most of the time, which majority of public is afraid of that much.
5th game, Poland really step up, my only question was where the hell have you been for the past 4 games? they were playing really relaxed and like we did before that agressive in the perimeter, didn't work out for us, we got quite a slap, but after that game vs. Spain that slap in the face might pan out welcome in the future.
Slovenia's roster is still underestimated abroad, but no matter that, isn't something other teams would be afraid of, the strenght of it is in that incredible intensity they are able to pull out when they've got to. Some players are trully beasts when energy is in question.
First thing that's visible is that Lakovič isn't physicaly on 100% and I recognise and respect the fact he isn't trying to get some rest in defense, he is actually trying to match the intensity Dragič bros ussualy try to provide, just that... logicaly... after 4-5-6 minutes of that he visibly gets tired and he slows down the pace significatly followed by making mistakes in offense, that have costed us quite a bit vs. Croatia as well as Poland.
Joksimovič replaced him vs. Poland on PG and even if he wasn't perfect it's obvious he can cope with that assignement for a while.
The pace will slow down and I expect Jaka to cope with the tempo easier accordingly.
Whenever Blažič nails the first shot and the one after that, he can be our no.1 or 2 guy, if he fails he kind of stops trying. He'll go over that with experience, but hopefully he'd explode in a game or two this championship as well.
It's on Maljković to figure out the lineup that can hold onto the lead and keep it for something longer than those 2 minutes. But that's doable, I guess... it must be
As far as the next 3 games go, I don't expect any of the following games to be easy, but we've got some solid theoretical advantage to begin with, deepest, most intense and most agressive perimeter line of them all. Italian perimeter has won against Finland, Kopponen got worn down completely, I believe Italians has shown the path there. Italian guards have also won the game vs. Spanoulis-less Greece in defense. Italy will be a tough job, as all 3 games will be, but we've already won in a pretty dominant way against them after that game I've put Italy among top8 teams on my imaginary ranking list at once, meaning they were far from playing bad basketball. In fact they've played a really decent game back than as well.
Well see what'll happen. People that never played basketball can't realise what a, seemingly ussual as any else, quarterfinal game can do... you suddenly become either the biggest hero or the biggest looser of them all, so basicaly it's all about that one game, for any team, Slovenia included (if we get there, which I believe we should).
