EuroBasket 2013 - day 4

[mcege]

Turkey - Greece I was hoping public to react more the news of V.Spanoulis probably missing this one, that's why I didn't take this early, but the line has been moved for only 0.5 points, better than nothing, but I was expecting a bigger reaction. Anyway, 0.5 is better then 0. I wrote about these two teams for first two days, I don't want to repeat myself. It's obvious that I believe Greece will destroy Turkey. Besides being a terribly structured team, one another characteristic of Turkish team had been evolved throughout this tournament, they're incredibly fragile. When an opponent makes 5-0, 7-0 scoring runs, Turkish team reacts like they're done for tournament, you can understand that from the face gestures, hand gestures. (I've spent first 26 years of my life in that country, I played basketball with one of the players in high school, I watched every other of them until they were playing for juniors, except E.Preldzic, who came from Slovenia, H.Turkoglu and K.Gonlum, who are old for me to watch them until juniors...) Missing of Spanoulis is obviously big, but he has ok replacement anyway and players like K.Sloukas, K.Papanikolaou and G.Printezis traditionally play excellent against Turkish teams, which will be enough to compensate Span's offensive abilities. Greek team will even better be a better defensive team without Spanoulis and I seriously wonder, how that offensively crippled Turkish team score more than 60-65 points against Greece. On the other hand, Turkish team had always been proud with its defense, but this one also can't make solid defense, neither. Good defensive sequences for 3-4 minutes and that's all. Rest of the time, opposing guards start to have a lay up training session. This is do, or die game for Turkey, but I'm not buying that, as well. I saw tons of do, or die games of Turkish national basketball team and they died in every of them, when they play on the road. Greece is at least couple level better team even without V.Spanoulis, I expect couple other players to step up and because of historical bull****s, Greeks will not relax which let a backdoor cover by Russia...(I even believe, even they relax, nothing will change as they play against one of the worst teams of the tournament.) Greece(-7.5) 5/10 @ 2.01

[mcege]

Re: EuroBasket 2013 - day 4 Spain - Czech Republic I know Spain is coming off a loss and will be motivated to bounce back, but Czechs are coming off a spiritual win against Poland. Team captain Lubos Barton nailed the buzzer beater three, so their morale must be high, as well. It's obvious, Czechs will care more about the upcoming games against Georgia and Croatia, but does it mean they'll just let Spain to thrash them? I don't think so. They are a team, which couldn't reach its offensive potential at all, Tomas Satoransky is playing a bad basketball, so far and I can't imagine a better challenge for him, as he'll face with his compatriots from the league he plays and more others from Nba. Spain is definitely the better team then CR, but as a part of their traditional slow start, transition to a different system under a different coach and absences of J.C.Navarro and P.Gasol, this is not a sharp team, yet. CR has couple good ball handlers and experienced veterans at perimeter, compared to Croatia which really struggled offensively against Spain, I expect them to find the ways to stay close, despite occasionally struggling against Spain's good perimeter defense. They don't contain a solution to match up with M.Gasol, but on the other hand, I expect J.Vesely to hurt them as well, when I consider his current form and abilities. Spain will win, but hopefully not that big. Czech Republic(+17) 5/10 @ 1.926