FIBA Europe Cup Quarter-Final Play-Offs week 3 review

MUNICH (FIBA Europe Cup) - We look back at this week's action in the FIBA Europe Cup Quarter-Final Play-Offs, which saw Fraport Skyliners and Enisey Krasnoyarsk punching their tickets to the Final Four.

Skyliners avenged their first loss of the campaign, in Game 2 at Maccabi Rand Media Rishon, with a convincing 91-75 victory at home in the series-decider on Thursday night.

The German team will go up against Enisey in the semi-finals, as earlier on Thursday the Russian side survived a tight finale in Krasnoyarsk and snatched an 82-78 win over Cibona Zagreb in Game 3 of their series.

Elan Chalon, which were the only team to sweep their best-of-three series, will finally get to know next week the name of their opponents in the semi-final.

That's because on Tuesday Port of Antwerp Giants out-scored Openjobmetis Varese 93-82 in Belgium and tied the series at 1-1, forcing a third clash back in Italy next Wednesday.

Light-fingered Giants

It was precisely that lone Tuesday game which reminded us once again that a team can anticipate what the opponent is going to do and prepare for it, but that might all amount to nothing once the ball gets rolling.

In our preview of the Antwerp clash we had underlined the Giants' aggressive defence and their active hands as a key to the game, despite the fact that this ability of the Belgian team was not evident in the opening encounter of the series.

We also wondered whether Varese, who had committed only nine turnovers in Game 1, would be able to show similar composure and take care of the ball on the road.

They weren't and they didn't.

By the half-time interval, Antwerp had already stole the ball five times, forced 10 turnovers and scored an amazing 19 points off them to overcome a slow start and jump in the driver's seat.

At the same time meanwhile, Varese had exactly zero steals and zero points off turnovers.

The Giants finished with 10 steals and 28 points off turnovers.

By the end, Varese were guilty of committing 20 mistakes, which is the second-most turnovers by any team in a single game since the start of the play-offs.

"We did not have the right impact as a team, so some individual players struggled more than others," commented Varese head coach Paolo Moretti.

"The entire key to the game was the turnovers as a result of the poor way we managed our possessions.

"We gave up too many easy points and you cannot win on the road like that."

Do I want the ball?

The finale of the decider between Enisey and Cibona rekindled what is possibly the second most divisive crunch-time debate, behind the 'should you foul them to prevent a three-pointer if you're up by two' dilemma.

Namely, whether it is preferable for a team to have the ball or to defend on the last possession.

With 23 seconds remaining and the scores tied at 23-all, Cibona on Thursday opted for the former and fouled Tony Taylor immediately as he received the in-bound pass.

It seemed like a wise choice since Enisey had converted only 16 of their 28 free-throws (57%) during the first 39 minutes and 37 seconds of the game.

But Taylor, who had not gone to the line at all up until that moment in the game, is an 80% free-throw shooter and while he didn't swish either of his free-throws, they both dropped in.

Cibona still had 23 seconds and James Florence ordered his team-mates to clear out.

The American point guard was arguably the best player on the night and had shot a superb 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, so he was always going to take the last shot.

But Florence could not decide between pulling up for a contested three or driving to the basket, nobody came to set a pick until it was too late and Cibona ended up fluffing their lines and committing an unsportsmanlike foul which sentenced them to defeat.

In hindsight, these 23 seconds were disastrous for Cibona and triumphant for Enisey, but taking into account the facts of the game and Enisey's struggles from the line up until that point, it is easy to justify the Croatian team's choice.

If they could do it all over again, would they do the same? The debate will go on and what happened in Thursday's game does not sway either side of the argument.

Deep blue

Following their Game 3 win over Maccabi, the Skyliners overall win/loss record in the FIBA Europe Cup surged to 16-1 so in case they win at least one of their two games in the Final Four they will have secured the best global record in the inaugural edition of the competition, regardless of whether they end up lifting the trophy of not.

There are plenty of reasons for Frankfurt's fantastic campaign, but one specific stat in Thursday's game underlined the most important of them all: their deep bench.

The Skyliners' second unit scored an amazing 49.5% of their team's points on Thursday (45 of the 91) which, as you might have guessed, is the biggest contribution off the bench in a single game that we have seen in these Play-Offs.

It is indicative that the previous best also belonged to Frankfurt from Game 1 of this series, where the Skyliners' bench players had scored 44 of the team's 92 points.

To put these figures into perspective, Maccabi got a total of 44 points from their bench over the three games of the series (9 in Game 1, 21 in Game 2, 14 in Game 3).

Performances of the week

It is highly doubtful that there was any fan in the Lotto Arena stands on Tuesday which was unaware of the fact Antwerp were playing a do-or-die game, but for the odd oblivious spectator Kwame Vaughn made sure to transmit a sense of urgency throughout the building.

The Giants' point guard stayed on the floor for just over 30 minutes, longer than any other player on the hosts' team, as he made it very difficult for his coach to sit him down for a breather.

Vaughn collected a double-double of 16 points (on 6-of-8 shooting) and 10 assists, also adding five rebounds and three steals.

His performance reached an efficiency rating of 29, which is clearly the highest this week.

The second place is shared by two players who also spurred their respective teams to victory and, in their case, to a Final Four berth.

Early on Thursday, David Kennedy of Enisey registered an efficiency rating of 24 in the victory against Cibona and later that day Philip Scrubb of Skyliners emulated the feat in his team's win over Maccabi.

Kennedy went 8-for-16 from the floor to pick up 23 points and added six boards, three assists and one block in his 35 minutes of play.

Scrubb meanwhile converted six of his 11 shots to score 20 points while he also had five rebounds, six assists and six drawn fouls.