EuroLeague Round 11 Reactions: Partizan's Belgrade Derby win sparks optimism

While Ergin Ataman has made many EuroLeague fans think otherwise, most teams who try to change their entire squad in one season suffer a fate similar to Partizan Belgrade. They started the season 2-8 and were completely devoid of anything resembling a team identity on either side of the ball. Their Round 11 matchup was a road game against archrivals Crvena Zvezda, who had slowed down after a strong start but looked poised to put a beatdown on Partizan. 

This game would tell us a lot about Partizan. Were they as bad as their 2-8 record says they are? Were they still figuring things out? If so, did they even want to? A blowout defeat at the hands of their rivals would’ve likely called an early end to this season and had Zeljko Obradovic and their front office planning for the offseason and hoping for domestic glory. 

Instead, Partizan rose to the occasion and in the process, may have finally found their recipe for success. Partizan is not a great offensive team. Their offensive rating is 114.3, 12th in the EuroLeague, and with poor play from Aleksej Pokusevski and Duane Washington Jr, it’s hard to see a dramatic turnaround on that side of the ball. But Partizan is athletic and has a roster full of tall, long, quick athletes who - while they may not be offensive studs - are capable of making plays on both sides of the ball. This is what they leaned into against Red Star. 

With a starting lineup of Frank Ntilikina, Sterling Brown, Isaac Bonga, Isiaha Mike, and Brandon Davies Partizan came out of the gate with a swarming approach. They applied ball pressure, were active in the passing lanes, and crashed the glass hard. The offense wasn’t smooth, but Red Star struggled to find a rhythm due to Partizan’s intensity. Red Star’s bench kept them in the game in the first quarter but also led to their unraveling in the second quarter. 

Partizan’s most reliable scorer is Carlik Jones. He’s smooth, quick, has a soft touch, can score from all areas, and creates out of the pick-and-roll. When their engine stalls out, they go in neutral and push Carlik as hard as they can to keep them afloat. In the second quarter against Red Star, he scored eight straight points and benefitted from being able to pick on Milos Teodosic off Red Star’s bench. A plus-eight point second-quarter showing for Partizan gave them a six-point lead heading into the half. 

They opened the third quarter with one change from their startling lineup — Iffe Lundberg for Brown — and he proved to be a key player for the rest of the game. He’s not quite the scorer Carlik is, but has some on-ball juice himself and is a reliable organizer at the EuroLeague level. When you put the ball in his hands, you trust someone will end up with a good shot. 

Partizan started making threes in the second half and that’s what helped them extend their lead, and pull away in this game. Bonga and Mike in particular proved crucial to their success. On a going-forward basis, at least one of them needs to be on the floor for Partizan when possible next to either Davies or Tyrique Jones at center. There are not a lot of reliable two-way stretch forwards in the EuroLeague, but Partizan has two of them. Mike can be infuriating — he’s prone to my-turn shots that this team doesn’t have room for with a guy like Carlik running the show — but he showed how the good can outweigh the bad in a game like this. Simply put, when he and Bonga are stretching the floor on offense and shrinking it on defense, this Partizan team suddenly becomes a difficult group to beat. 

The same cannot be said for Red Star. This loss is disappointing, their second in a row after a Round 10 loss to LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne. Yikes. But the nature of the loss stings too. This was the home derby match for Red Star, yet they got pushed around by Partizan like it was nothing. They lost the rebounding battle, lost 50/50 balls, and made more turnovers. Partizan set the temp in this one, and it’s not just a mentality issue, it’s a personnel issue. 

For the newly discovered gluttony of two-way players at Partizan’s disposal, Red Star’s roster is the complete opposite. They’ve got two players who reliably impact the game on both sides of the ball: Codi Miller-McIntyre and an aging Nikola Kalinic. This was best highlighted by back-to-back plays early in the fourth quarter. Ioannis Sfairopoulos put Branko Lazic (read Serbian Matisse Thybulle) in the game to inject some toughness and defensive intensity. He committed a lazy turnover and got subbed out for Yago Dos Santos (read Brazilian Cam Payne) who immediately got targeted by Lundberg on the other end and gave up a bucket to him. 

This isn’t hockey, you can’t rotate players in and out during live play. You need players that can produce on both ends of the floor, and Red Star — for all the talent they have — seems to be missing that. At 5-6, they remain tied for the final play-in spot and Partizan is two games back. But coming out of this derby, Partizan seems to have finally found answers and Red Star’s list of questions continues to grow.