Day 20 Euroleague: Real Madrid - Olimpia Milano

* Once again Real started the game with Taylor as their second guard, who is supposed to eliminate one of the opponent guards. It worked out well. Taylor uses his size and athletic abilities wisely: he can sagg to the paint, and then come out again to block his guard. When he was replaced with Carroll, Real´s defence collapsed. Unlike him, Carroll was not able to guard a big guy when the defence switch after an italian pick´n´roll.

* Repesa sent Abass, perhaps as a response, to guard Llull. Well, he simply can´t. The second plan was a defensive team effort, all night long (almost) in order to stop Llull. Everybody in red was guarding Llull, even if it costed Milan with three pointers or spanish offensive rebounds.

* And in order to punish Milan even harder, Laso played for some minutes in the second quarter with a tall line-up: Randolph-Thompkins-Hunter/Ayon. That line-up dominated to boards. Out of Real´s 11 offensive rebounds, 8 came from those guys. The blancos got a lot of second chance opportunities, but missed most of them.

* After scoring 99 points against best Euroleague´s defensive team, Olympiacos, Milan continued their good form. Their offence looks better – no more insisting on isolating Sanders for one on one moves. Rather Milan plays like a team – simple pick´n´rolls (sometimes even off the ball) and basic basketball moves. Real´s defence looked for many minutes too tired and apathic. Each of Milan´s pick´n´rolls turned the spanish defence apart. In addition, Real was playing soft in the first half, letting Milan finish most of their power drives with a basket.

* In the third quarter Real already showed some defensive willingness. However, they were over motivated, and commited too many cheap fouls. That sent Milan to the line too often (25 free throws in the game), allowing them to gain easy points. The ref did Real a big favour and fouled out Maciulis, Real´s worst player tonight who was a burden (but still received 14 minutes. Laso´s system of sharing the minutes is unorthodox). After that Real´s defence looked much better, and their offence was faster.

* In the last quarter Real stopped Milan´s offence with some defensive adjustments and one great Dontaye Draper. Milan was playing in the money time with a back court that included Cinciarini, Dragic and Kalnietis. Who of them has the skill to take the ball and make a basket in an individual move? None. Hickman and Sanders, Milan best two individual players, were not on court (to Respesa´s defence it must be said, that the two were not playing good tonight).

* Unlike most of the Euroleague teams, Real has a tradition of using their american players as roll players. Their stars are always local or european. This season is not an exception: Draper, Carroll, Hunter, Taylor, Thompkins, Randolph – all used as role players. While all of them can and should be role players in a contender, the later is better than that. Much better. Personally, I think Randolph is the best PF in the Euroleague. In Real he is not even a part of the starting five. His new minor role affects his confidence. He is making stupid mistakes, and that is very untypical of him.

#Euroleague #RealMadrid #OlimpiaMilano