EuroLeague Week 25 Winners and Losers: EuroLeague Play-In Previews and Predictions

The EuroLeague regular season is officially over. ALBA Berlin and ASVEL had the seasons we expected them to have, Milano, Partizan, and Red Star Belgrade never found any sort of consistency, Zalgiris Kaunas and Valencia just didn’t have enough to make it to the play-in, and Bayern’s first-year of the Pablo Laso project came up short of the play-in. But enough about the teams who didn’t make the play-in tournament, let’s talk about the teams who did. 

EuroLeague Week 25 Winners and Losers: Predicting Anadolu Efes Istanbul vs. Virtus Bologna

These two teams could not have had more opposite seasons. Virtus Bologna stormed out of the game and was a top-3 EuroLeague team through the first half of the season. Their downward tumble began shortly thereafter, then spiraled, and they closed the season on a seven-game losing streak. We have talked about Bologna multiple times during this slide — underscoring their cratering offense as the cause of their woes. That continues to be their problem, but if they can figure it out for one game and then maybe one more, they could still make the EuroLeague playoffs. 

Efes were slow out of the gate, battled injuries regularly throughout the season, fired their coach, and then won eight of their last ten to force their way into the play-in. Their offense was always solid, but their defense is what has improved just enough over this final stretch to get the wins. So, what does Bologna need to do to takedown Efes and extend their hail-mary pursuit of the EuroLeague playoffs?

For starters, Bologna needs the points to be able to win these games. Efes will always put points on the board, that’s a given, they simply have too much firepower. Bologna could slow it down and force themselves into this game, but they will need to score. Phase one of generating enough offense is getting Marco Belinelli going. This doesn’t mean he needs to go 4/7 from three in the first quarter — though that would help — or anything similar. It means they need to be finding him off curls and pin-downs and putting him in positions where he’s drawing the interest of two Efes defenders. 

Efes will chase Belinelli over the top of screens, it’s what they did in both of their regular season matchups. Justus Hollatz will probably draw this responsibility with the starting unit and Rodrigue Beaubois with the bench if their minutes end up lining up at all. If Belinelli can get open and knock down some jumpers, great, that’s the first option. The second option is him pulling the screener defenders out for a contest as well — probably Tibor Pleiss, Ercan Osmani, Daniel Oturu, Tyrqiue Jones, etc. — and if he does, Bologna needs to cut off that and attack the rim. Isaia Cordinier needs to be looking for this, and it would behoove Luca Bianchi to play Ognjen Dobric alongside Belinelli given the Serbian wing's prowess as a cutter. 

If Belinelli can’t get open or find a cutter, Bologna should be setting up Tornike Shengelia post-ups on the same side of the floor — stack your two best offensive players together and force Efes to decide if they want to guard Shengelia one-on-one or help. Using Belinelli’s gravity properly can make this a competitive game, optimize Shengelia, and give the likes of Cordinier, Dobric, and Lundberg ample chance to fill in the gaps. 

To try to prevent this from happening, Efes needs to chase Belinelli around screens and force him to shoot more long twos. Don’t have your big man step up to contest as well, live with the Belinelli long two with a contest from behind and see if he makes enough of them. Against pick-and-roll, they should be in drop coverage versus all of Bologna’s ballhandlers except for maybe Lundberg who they should look to meet at the level. Blitzing a few pick-and-rolls isn’t a bad idea either. Bryant Dunston and Ante Zizic are not threats in the short roll, so making them key decision-makers — especially when Belinelli isn’t on the floor — should be a successful strategy. 

Defensively, Bologna will have two difficult questions to answer. The first one is how they match up. Shengelia probably takes Osmani, Dunston on Pleiss, and Belinelli on Hollatz. That leaves Daniel Hackett on Shane Larkin and Cordinier on Will Clyburn. Is that ideal? Hackett is still a good defender but it’s hard to see him staying in front of Larkin enough in a game like this. Cordinier is undersized against Clyburn, who’s finally playing well again. Do you start Dobric instead? Polonara? At least get the right size against Clyburn. Bologna could also start Alessandro Pajola who could move with Larkin better than Hackett can, but that’s asking a lot of a 24-year-old in a big game. 

The second question is how will Bologna guard Efes’ pick-and-pop with Pleiss, and guard Pleiss generally. Will they send Dunston out to contest? Pleiss is shooting 43 percent from deep this season, it’s a risk to leave him open. But if you send Dunston out there, the paint is open for Larkin, Clyburn, Darius Thompson, Beaubois, and Elijah Bryant to attack. That’s not ideal either. Bologna does not like to switch but they may have to reconsider if Pleiss is knocking his shots down. They could try to hedge and recover, or maybe even blitz and make Pleiss more of a decision-maker than a shooter. 

Efes could generate a lot of offense out of their pick-and-pop with Pleiss, and they should be targeting Belinelli as well. If Bologna is trying to hide him on Hollatz, then start using Hollatz as a screener or have him come off screens and into action with the likes of Larkin, Clyburn, and others. Worst case scenario, Belinelli is being forced to exert more energy on the defensive end than he would like. Best case scenario, he gets in foul trouble or truly can’t handle what he’s being asked to do and you get Larkin and others going against him. 

Bologna is in bad form and has a lot more questions to answer heading into this matchup against red hot Efes team than the Turkish side does. They are not set up for success, and without a big night from Belinelli or Cordinier, it’s hard to see that changing. Efes should prevail here, and have a shot at grabbing the eighth seed and another playoff matchup with Real Madrid. 

EuroLeague Week 25 Winners and Losers: Predicting Maccabi Tel Aviv vs. Baskonia

Maccabi Tel Aviv versus Baskonia is a much more difficult game to predict, and this game will come down to which Baskonia shows up. Maccabi is the better team here and closed the season by winning seven of their last eight with the only loss coming at the hands of a Nicola Laprovittola game-winner at the Palau Blaugrana. On the flip side, Baskonia has the talent and ability to beat anyone. They got into the stronger side of the play-in with two road wins over Real Madrid and Virtus Bologna, that’s no easy feat, but they also needed to win these games because they suffered a three-game losing streak before then. 

This Baskonia team has two versions. The good version is getting physical on defense and on the glass, winning the possession battle, and generating open looks for Markus Howard, Vanja Marinkovic, and Nikos Rogkavopoulos. When their shooters are firing, Codi Miller-McIntyre, Tadas Sedekerskis, and Chima Moneke can attack the rim with authority and Baskonia’s offense can at times look unstoppable. Add on the occasional Matt Costello pick-and-pop three and that’s why Baskonia has been able to beat nearly every EuroLeague team this season. 

There is a bad version of Baskonia though, the version that crashes the offensive glass too aggressively gives up easy transition points, struggles to get out of bad matchups, gets Howard in foul trouble, and puts themselves in impossible positions to win games. 

If the good Baskonia shows up, Maccabi will be put to the sword. In their Round 25 matchup, Maccabi was overwhelmed by Baskonia’s shooting — something they have struggled to cover all season. Oded Kattash’s side often leaves a lot to be desired when guarding the pick-and-roll as well. Lorenzo Brown and Wade Baldwin often start the game somewhat soft defensively, which keeps them out of foul trouble, but risks letting some of Baskonia’s guys get going too easily. 

Maccabi has the offense to beat this Baskonia team, no doubt about that, but they need to ramp up their physicality on the defensive end by a significant amount. For a team with good size and a surplus of plus-athletes, there is zero excuse for their lack of physicality and occasional withering on the defensive end. They can’t let Baskonia do anything comfortably, and they must box out and protect the defensive glass. 

If Maccabi does what they are supposed to do, they should win this one. But if Baskonia cuts out the easy points they give up, they will very likely make this a nail-biting game which could lead to a Howard versus Baldwin shootout to decide the winner. For the inaugural seven-against-eight play-in game, that’d be an ideal finale from a neutral fan perspective and is exactly the type of matchup the play-in is supposed to create. 

EuroLeague Week 25 Lines of the Week

Markus Howard’s 34 points and five threes to get a big win for Baskonia in Bologna. He might be the most feared shooter in EuroLeague right now. 

EuroLeague Week 25 Quote of the Week

Kevin Punter pretending he wasn’t insinuating Crvena Zvezda tanked against Anadolu Efes was pretty funny.

EuroLeague Week 25 Clip of the Week

Isaiah Canaan turning on clutch mode to get Olympiacos the win over Fenerbahce.