Rock´n´Roll vs. Pick´n´roll

Another win into Alba´s Eurocup season, and the Berliner fans are already developing high expectations. Why should not they? Their team seems to be almost unstoppable, at least when it comes to making fast and easy points. And definately if one compares this season - so far - with the traumatic last season.

As I wrote before, Alba´s offence based on a high paced game. We saw it again yesterday against the Lithuanians: aggresive defence with pressure on the ball leads to steals and quick points in the fast break. The German team is also running after receiving a basket, or after succesful free throws of the opponent. They turn many balls over - yesterday they finished with horrible 24-19 asissts-turnover ratio, but in the end effect it worth it. In fact, as much as the German offence is shorter, the chances of it to end up with a basket are higher. When Alba starts to play half court basketball it hurts the eyes. When Rytas forced a slow pace in the beginnig of the second quarter, Alba scored 6 points in 5 minutes.

Payton "wild horse" Siva was the guy of the game. It is not a coincidence - he was born for the open court. But the most amazing point comes when you look at the shot selection. Until few years ago, many European coaches were used to assume that a running game is a wild game, where the coach loses control over his team, where decision level is at the bottom . Bullshit. The team of the German capital is running whenever they can - yesterday they scored 72% from the 2! And out of 40 shots from that range, only 4 were made out of the paint - shots that considered to be unefficient. That is one hell of a diciplined team.

On the defensive side, Alba had some problem. One of them was the high pick´n´roll game of Rytas. Whenever Echodas - the most influential player on the court in my opinion - gave a screen, the German defence collapsed. Vilnius played smart spacing, and which made it difficult for Alba to respond. It is easier to do this spacing when you can put in the corner some Lithuanian machine gun who never misses a three. Echodas used Alba´s defensive problems to score 13 in the first half while wrecking the rim.

In the second half Aito´s solution for the Lithuanian pick´n´roll was to sagg to the paint and not letting any easy points from the paint. Rytas punished with three pointers, but their game in the paint was over. They also took 40 shots from the 2, just like Alba, but scored 10 shots less. When the three pointers started to go out, they lost the game.

So Alba is happy, but this level of play would not be enough for the high levels of the Eurocup.

#Eurocup #AlbaBerlin #Lietuvosrytas