Day 23 Euroleague: Panathinaikos - Unics Kazan

* PAO decided to thorw everything they have against Langford, guarding him with double and triple-ups. Well, if Langford is more or less everything Kazan has onthe offensive end, why not to put all efforts to stop him? Because it is wrong. Sometimes you just have to let the rival star go wild, and focus your defensive efforts on the role players. Just like Chuck Daly and the Pistons did to Jordan in the good old days of the bad boys. Let Langford score 35 points and lose the game by not sharing the ball. Instead, Langford used to extra defensive attention he recieved to pass 7 assists, all of them in the first half, when PAO used double ups. His seasonal average is 3.8. So eventually he scored his 21 points, and helped the role players around him to make easy points and build up their confidence.

* On the other hand, Panathinakos had just 3 assists in the half time. The whole team, that means. They don´t look good in the half court offence. At the beginning of the game, when defences were soft and let both teams run, PAO scored easily. In the second half, when the game became more aggressive and slow, PAO showed difficulties. They reached just 39 points in the half time despite 8 second chance opportunities. Not a good sign. But Pascual said he is satisfied from the offensive game, so who am I to judge.

* In the second half, PAO learnt from their mistakes. They gave up the idea of double uping Langford, even in the cost of getting him score a basket here and there. He finished the second half with no assists. Kazan had just 7 of those. Their happy fluent offence could score more than 19 points in a quarter. Chuck Daly was right after all.

* Panathinaikos guarded with a simple, aggressive man on man defence in the second half, with pressure on the ball. Beside the advantages mentioned already, that kind of defence also had a phsychological effect on PAO´s players. It increased their level of commitment, and provided some nice hustle moments. Not just in defence. Kazan was sagging to stop Bourousis, and PAO punished from the 3pt range.

* Very smartly, when he saw that Langford is collapsing (played over 36 minutes), Quino Colom, decided to be the executer of Kazan´s offence. Not a bad decision. He played smart, and for several consecutive posseions in the money time he was able to creat points from scoring and passing. And than, 30 seconds to the end, in the most crucial posession, Langford insisted on taking the ball, playing one against the world and losing the game.

* Gentile used tonight his power and size in order to make some points. It worked well, but still - he does not seem connected to the team. Something just doesn´t flow when he gets the ball. If he fails in PAO, not sure that he gets another chance at an Euroleague level.

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