Partizan, Belgrade

Partizan had a lot of success last season, but most of its key players were traded in the off-season (Tepić, Veličković, Tripković, Lasme). As always, Partizan does good scouting and they acquired new players (Alex Marić, McCalleb). It is still early to say, player-by-player it reads like a net loss to me. Marić seems to be somewhat of the force inside and McCalleb has speed, quickness, and mindset to score a lot of baskets, but their long-range shooting is not as much of the threat this year and they don’t have a clear leader on the court when the game is on the line. Partizan started slow both in the Adriatic League and Euroleague.

Cibona, Zagreb

Cibona has struggled financially, players played without the pay for some time. They were blown out by Sienna in their first Euroleague game at home. Then, they lost two more, but finally won a game at home against Zalgiris. Cibona is trying to incorporate some younger players into the roster while relying on Marko Tomas to break the defenses and score a lot of points. So far, the results have been mixed. They do have the best start in the Adriatic League in years as they haven’t lost the game their yet; coming back from Belgrade with a win against Partizan.

I would be surprised if either team did anything significant in the Euroleague this year. Round of 16 would clearly be a huge success. In the Adriatic League, this seems to be the year of Croatian basketball. In addition to Cibona, Zagreb has piled up wins, and Cedevita is in the upper echelons. In the past years, the clubs from Serbia dominated the league to the extent that they questioned the very purpose of participating. If Croatia and Slovenia can consistently add quality to the league, the current debate in Serbia that they just play to improve other countries’ basketball will go away.

Marko Tomas in Action

I’d like to remind my US audience that basketball is played throughout the world. This game is second to only soccer as the most widespread ball game in the world, and one of few truly international games invented on the American soil. But when I say the whole world, I really mean US and Europe. Yes, Argentina and Brasil have good leagues; the game is gaining popularity in China by hour; Australia has put some decent teams together in the past decades. But the best players find their way either to an NBA team or to a team which plays in Euroleague. Most of the best players early in their career (Ricky Rubio) or a bit later (Luis Scola) get drafted into the NBA.

Paul Pierce from the Celtics

Euroleague is a serious business, fans have real passion, and the quality of basketball is very good. A lot of talented players play Euroleague hoping that it will be a conduit to the NBA, but some choose it as their final destination. For years I’ve been following some teams which play Euroleague, one of them is Cibona from Zagreb, Croatia. This year they have a solid team, but one which is not likely to go very far after the group round.

Now, I am slowly coming to the topic of this article: Cibona’s best paid and likely their best player Marko Tomas, a star of sorts. Every time I watch his game he reminds me of one of the NBA stars Paul Pierce, from the Boston Celtics. They couldn’t be more different in some ways, Pierce makes millions while Tomas probably doesn’t crack the 1/2 mil mark; Pierce clearly has many times more talent and athleticism; Pierce won an NBA championship two years ago while Tomas hasn’t won anything yet. Neither is young any more, although Tomas is considerably younger. But the game, when you watch them play they both dance through defenses, the ball sticks to their hands, you can’t say if they’ll shoot or attack the rim, while quite often they’ll find an open guy as the defenses collapse around them. They are both elusive offensive players, very hard for defenders to track down.

Yes, Pierce may finish more of his shots and drives. He will likely have more assists on a given night because he is surrounded by Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, but that game is born out of the same basketball dream that two kids once shared – one in L.A. another in Koprivnica, Croatia. And every time I watch either of them play, I am reminded that this game is one of the great connectors of distant places on earth, and human beings who couldn’t be less alike.

Partizan won their first game in the Top 16 this year by beating Lottomatica Roma. After first five minutes, the game was never really in question. Partizan was carried to victory on the wings of an excellent game by Novica Velickovic who scored 19 points and added 10 rebounds. He was active the whole night and he also had 3 assists and 1 block. The guards did their part, too. Tripkovic’s shooting was sharp last night and Tepic added 4 assists to his 9 points. The whole game, Partizan was playing off the energy of some 7,000 fans, who never stopped chanting and singing. This is a very important win for the Belgrade team. Panathinaikos defeated Unicaja in Malaga, keeping the group wide open. Most likely, Partizan will be contending for one of two spots that leads to Top 8 with Unicaja Malaga. They play Unicaja in Belgrade next week and after that game it will be clearer who has an upper hand in the fight to the next round.

A side note: Partizan has been in financial troubles for years. Every year around Christmas, these problems resurface when the arena Pionir shuts down the heat during practice (actually, they don’t shut it down completely, just turn it down to 16C, which is roughly 60F). This year is no different. Partizan management blames the city and state governments for not helping one of the premier clubs in the country. The government says that there are many segments of the society more deserving of help. The fans are frustrated, some are asking where’s the money from all the players sold in the previous years to wealthy European clubs while others are offering to send checks to the Partizan’s bank account. It counts as almost incredible that Partizan remains competitive year after year, mostly on ther home-grown talent.

CSKA 87 – Cibona 61

Cibona didn’t expect to win in Moscow, but they did expect not to be blown out. Losing by 26 points can only ruin their hard-won confidence, and almost wipe away the momentum that the great win from last week gave them. CSKA had evenly distributed scoring, with Trajan Langdon’s 18 points leading the stat sheet. For Cibona, Anderson had a decent game, with 15 points and some rebounds and assists. The veteran Prkacin added 10 points, while Calloway scored only 6 points. The most surprising stat is Davor Kus’ 0 points, and I’ll say it again: zero. Not that he didn’t play much, he was there for full 24 minutes (which is about as much as you can get in European basketball). Kus was supposed to be the leader of this team, and with this kind of leadership they won’t go very far.

The good thing is this was a sort of throw-away game for Cibona. The next game is a must win (they are playing Fenerbahce, a not particularly strong Turkish squad). Cibona has to win consistently at home and steal at list one game away. For their last game, they may play it in the newly built Zagreb Arena, especially if they are close to making it to the next round. Who knows, in front of 16,000 fans they may even give CSKA a game.

After losing Vranes, not a particularly skilled offensive player, but an intimidating defender and shot blocker, Partizan’s guards have lost their touch. They hoisted too many threes early in the shot clock and turned the ball over. The coach Vujosevic wasn’t successful in orchestrating better defensive rotations inside and calming the guards down. Partizan rushed themselves into a loss instead playing a more thoughtful offense. Maybe they should have tried Vesely and Lasme inside, even if Vesely didn’t have his night offensively. Lasme seemed to have been in the groove.

It needs to be mentioned that Panathinaikos shot 17 more free throws. If you are a Partizan fan it is easy to jump to conclusions and blame the refs for being lenient towards the Greeks. Maybe they were somewhat influenced by the 10,000 strong crowd, but they didn’t hand the game over to the Greek team. The truth is that Panathinaikos was way more aggressive attacking the hoop. What may hurt Partizan’s fans even more is that Pekovic was the one to cause havoc in the paint and shot 15 of 27 free throws, making 14 of them along the way. Moreover, he celebrated every dunk as if it was his last, even after the game was already secured.

Then, give credit to Panathinaikos. Their roster is deep, their team defense rock-solid and they have plenty of scoring options. They could alternate Diamantidis and Jasikevicius at point and spread out their scoring from outside (Spanoulis was the only other player in double digits).

This loss puts pressure on Partizan to win against Lottomatica next Wednesday. Panathinaikos is going to Malaga to play Unicaja, which could be one of the most interesting match-ups of Game 2 round of Top 16.

Partizan Guards

Have a look at Partizan shooters, because the outcome of the games vastly depends on their outside shooting.

Uros Tripkovic

Milenko Tepic

For Cibona, Earl Calloway scored 23 points and had 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Davor Kus played a good game too (13 points, 7 rebounds). This puts Cibona into good place to reach Top 8, although there are a lot of tough games ahead.

The Drazen Petrovic arena was filled to the last seat and the fans carried their team to the win. Cibona has had issues with lack luster fans in the past. Continued fan support will give them wings for the upcoming home games.

A lot of credit also goes to the coach Velimir Perasovic, one of the golden boys of Croatian basketball. He clearly understands how to put the team together and make key decisions when needed during the game. This time, the victim was Montepaschi, lost in the Cibona zone defense in the second half.