The Eurobasket Thread

[Rastapopoulos]

Wow, our almost Center of The Future Asik just crushed 'em today!

Playing against our almost PG of the future. And hey, he did better than Toronto's center of the future: Valanciunas played 11 mins and got 2 points and 2 boards while Nenad Krstic got 20 and 9 for the opposing team.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Check out this channel on YouTube for all the highlights.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Interesting that having NBA players hasn't meant that much so far. NBA players who lost to teams with no NBA players:
Omri Casspi, Marcin Gortat, Jeffery Taylor, Jonas Jerebko, Hedo Turkoglu, Omer Asik, Ersan Ilyasova, Pero Antic, Tony Parker, Batum, Diaw, Valanciunas.

 

[Run BJM]

Really well, it looks like:
mins: 34
5/8
14 points (second-leading scorer)
5 rbs
3 assists
1 steal
+/- 15 in a big win over one of the favorites to make the final 4.
And shit: Serbia was without Krstic as well as Teodosic.

[edit: that must be a DIFFERENT N. Krstic, because the Krstic we know played 29 minutes and got 20 and 9.]

I like this dude:

[video=youtube;FFpSdHmc68s]

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I like this dude:

He could be the new-age Sarunas Marciulonis.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Finland wins again! PET-TER-I!

 

[jlprk]

My designated favorite player a few years back. Then Pritchard made him return to Europe.

 

[illmatic99]

Pretty pathetic showing from FRA

 

[THE HCP]

France beats Great Britain 88-64 at EuroBasket. Nic with 17 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 block.

Freeland isn't playing!

 

[THE HCP]

Spain loses to host country Slovenia 78-69 at EuroBasket. Vic with 3 points, 6 rebounds, 1 block.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

DAY 2:
Name: mins, fg/fga, points, rbs, assists
Batum: 23, 7/10, 17, 4, 1
Claver: 28, 1/5, 3, 6, 0
Rudy: 23, 1/4, 5, 4, 1
Sergio: 14, 3/6, 7, 2, 1
Nedzad: 4, 0/0, 2, 1, 0
Monya: 33, 4/8, 9, 3, 3
Petteri: 27, 3/6, 10, 2, 6
Asik: 16, 4/4, 12, 2, 0 (now 6/6 over two days, two losses)
Papanik: 21, 4/6, 10, 2, 0
Printezis: 20, 4/8, 9, 4, 1
Pooh: 28, 1/5, 4, 4, 2

Nic bounced back nicely today. Koponen again a winner, and over a bigger neighbor. Nedzad actually got in the game! And got a steal. But B & H still lost. Bad day for Spain, and Rudy certainly didn't help.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Wiz should be happy: over two games Jan Vesely is second in the tournament in points (20) and first in rebounds (10.5). Interesting that Tony Parker isn't in the top 5 in points OR assists.

 

[THE HCP]

Maybe Parker is a Tier 10 PG?

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Classic Rudy (although, to be fair, it looks like he's being clubbed by a zombie):

 

[illmatic99]

[video=youtube;m0fgPG_OG5Q]

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Play #1 is Rudy-to-Claver:

[video=youtube;G3XcSXxbU3w]

 

[Rastapopoulos]

France demolished Israel. Remember when people were mad we didn't draft Casspi?

[video=youtube;yAS1Ebw4Lkw]

Nic allez oop dunque:

[video=youtube;ebQsTTLQkFY]

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Watching Greece-Turkey. Papanikolaou is just about a perfect 3-and-D wing. The Rockets are going to be pleased to have him.

Bourousis is killing Turkey inside. Do the Spurs still have his rights?

Huh - I just googled him and found that Real Madrid have just acquired him. They are going to be seriously good. Not that they aren't already, in Euro-terms.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

DAYS 3 & 4:
Name: mins, fg/fga, points, rbs, assists
Batum: 22, 4/6, 9, 2, 1
Claver: 17, 2/5, 6, 6, 1 (+17)
Rudy: 28, 6/13, 14, 8, 0 (4 steals)
Sergio: 11, 1/5, 5, 2, 0
Nedzad: DNP
Monya: 23, 3/7, 8, 4, 1 (Russia and Turkey are both 0-3)
Petteri: 27, 3/11, 8, 2, 1 (Finland finally lost)
Asik: 17, 2/3, 6, 5, 0
Papanik: 25, 5/7, 11, 4, 3
Printezis: 9, 0/1, 0, 1, 1
Pooh: 32, 7/15, 19, 5, 6 (Ukraine still unbeaten!)

 

[Rastapopoulos]

GB beats Germany! Let's avoid any MORE tired WWII comments, shall we? But it's certainly insane that GB beats a team that beat France. Wish Freeland could've played.

 

[illmatic99]

FRA vs (Pooh's) UKR on now: http://www.feed2all.eu/watch/206264/1/watch-ukraine-vs-france.html

Nic has 4pts and 4rebs so far.

 

[illmatic99]

ugh WIDE OPEN from the corner and he takes a dribble in and instead of pulling up, he it passes off to Diaw for the 3. Gotta change that mentality.

 

[illmatic99]

If FRA could actually hit some of the threes they attempt, this would be so easy

 

[illmatic99]

Seeing nothing from Nic. Sigh

Fuckin finally. Took it hard to the rim to finish.

 

[illmatic99]

Nic on the bench for nearly the whole fourth. TP took over. Nic finished with 8pts, 6rebs, and 2blks on 2/8 FG bleh

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Russia-Finland was a barn-burner. Shved was class, but the Russian team as a whole was pretty inept and Finland win in double-OT. PK gets 11 assists.

I watched a bit of the France vs. Ukraine game and Ukraine were a combination of dirty play and good three-point-shooting. Mike Fratello gets older as his hair gets younger. Batum was floating a bit, it's true. Same old inconsistent player.


(Player of today will probably end up being Jan Vesely - he got 27 and 10 while shooting an insane 12 for 14. Wiz have to wonder why he can't do that for them.)

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Wow: Finland just beat Greece! And Koponen scored 29 points! Meanwhile Spain clobbered Georgia, but were -4 for the 8 minutes that Claver played... I dunno if he's hurt or if they've realized that they're better without him, but his minutes seem to have gone down in the past couple of games (WAY down today).

[video=youtube;okaArPk5-QY]

[video=youtube;McD5a_JrSqk]

 

[Pinwheel1]

Nic on the bench for nearly the whole fourth. TP took over. Nic finished with 8pts, 6rebs, and 2blks on 2/8 FG bleh

Funny thing about that is if he would have made two more shots and ended up 4-8, with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks, he would have had a pretty good game. "It's a thin line...... between love and hate"

 

[Rastapopoulos]

John Hobbs ‏@johnswisshobbs 1h France's Nicholas Batum out of tonight's game against Belgium with a foot injury. Listed as day-to-day.


Maybe this is why he sat out the fourth quarter of the last game.

Here's what he says on his Facebook page:

Un petit soucis à la cheville m'empêche de jouer le match face à la Belgique ce soir. Je suis à fond derrière tous mes coéquipiers et leur souhaite un gros match ! / I have a slight ankle sprain which won't allow me to play vs Belgium tonight. I will be supporting my teammates and i wish them a great game !

Cue list of people complaining about him playing for the national team...

 

[Rastapopoulos]

The first round is over and some surprising teams have been bounced: Turkey, Russia and Poland, for example, as well as Macedonia, which had the same team that did really well in the Worlds last time. Meanwhile, some surprising teams are still in it: Finland, Belgium and Latvia for example. Here's an article about the five best players remaining, and the five best on teams that have been eliminated.

And here is how the remaining (12 out of 24) teams will be ranked for the second round. The second round, like the first, is not immediate elimination - the teams are divided into 2 groups and play 3 games within those groups (against the teams they did not play in the first round) and the teams with the best records advance.

France will play Lithuania (today) and then Latvia and Serbia. France "already" is 2-0 in the second round because you carry forward your wins against teams that also made it to the second round (for France, Ukraine and Belgium). Spain has a harder task, not just because they're 1-1 because of their loss to Slovenia in the first round, but also because they play Greece (tomorrow) then Finland (with the mighty Koponen) and the only as-yet unbeaten team, Italy.