LONDON (England) - No guest feature in the column this week. We do have plenty of very cool guests lined up for the coming weeks. But for this week, it'll have to be me doing what I'm supposed to do - writing about tactics in the Basketball Champions League. 

Fortunately, we are three weeks into the craziest BCL season yet and we have already had our fair share of thrills and spills to talk about. If you read Igor's Help-Side Column you would have seen that 50 percent of the games this week were decided by single digits. We have also had a ludicrous number of overtimes and buzzer beaters over the first three rounds. And with that, we have seen an equal dose of excellent execution and equally inexplicable errors. So let's dive in.

True Blue 1

Starting with the freshest memory, we are in Italy for Avellino vs Anwil on day 1 of Gameday 3. With 6.4 seconds left in the game, Anwil were down two, Igor Milicic made the t-shape to the scorers' table and refocused in the huddle.

A deep breath later, Coach Milicic drew up a cross-screen to get the ball inside. The boys in blue went out and executed. Anwil threw what looked like a picture-perfect lob play to tie the game and send us to OT. 

But what really happened here and why was it so easy? Was this execution or error? The answer is a bit of both.

The first thing to notice here is that Coach Milicic had tweaked his lineup. If you are running a cross-screen for a pass to the post, it would make sense to have your center receiving the screen for the inbound pass. Avellino had no fouls to give, so a post up would have made sense. (With no fouls to give, Avellino might have been reluctant to switch the screen if it's a small screening for the big).

Instead, Igor Milicic didn't put a center on the court and inverted the screen. He used his Power Forward (#11 Valerii Likhodei) to screen away for his wing (#23 Michal Michalak) - almost as if he was actively encouraging the switch. Watch how Demetris Nichols (#8) was in position and ready to switch the screen for Avellino. Then watch how Ariel Filloy (#12) played it like he didn't get the email and they completely fluffed it.

Did Coach Milicic know that Avellino would blow the switch? Certainly not.

Did he set the play up to encourage the switch and have his Power Forward on the basket side of Avellino's Point Guard? Certainly yes.

The points go to Coach Milicic on this one. Although I suspect he probably doesn't care that much for us giving him the credit here... Avellino found a way in OT and took the win. 

True Blue 2 

 A slightly different shade of blue this time as it's Neptunas' turn to impress. Coach Maksvytis' team have a 1-2 record that doesn't paint an accurate picture of how they are playing. Sometimes the margins are thin. A blocked shot in Bologna and a bad pass in Oostende are the major differences between 3-0 and 1-2.... Either way, the type of basketball they have been playing means they are more than deserving of a look at some of the excellent stuff they have been running.

The action in the video below was a peach. Lorenzo Williams (#5) starts the play by entering the ball to the wing and making the "UCLA Cut". As he receives the ball back, watch how Neptunas use their best shooter (#9 Delininkaitis) to make a decoy cut and then set the back screen for Gytis Masiulis (#22). The context here is that Bologna had been face-guarding Delininkaitis and chasing him in their "box and 1" zone defense. This caught Punter off guard and gave him a tough decision to make (he is the guy chasing Delininkaitis). He chose to stay attached and Neptunas got the easy dunk.

True Blue 3

Want to know what would have happened if Kevin Punter had helped off Dilininkaitis on the screen? Of course you do.

Why don't we use another Eastern European team in blue shirts to show you (seems perfectly logical to me). This time its Anwil running the exact same action out of the post. Kamil Laczynski (#9) makes the UCLA cut and it's Michalak setting the back screen on the weak side. Ariel Filloy is guarding Michalak and helps on the screen. Michalak runs straight into a screen-the-screener action from Valerii Likhodii. Look closely and you'll see Likhodii himself has just been screened by Josip Sobin (#13) before setting the screen. This is the kind of offensive design that has so many of us raving about Igor Milicic as a potential coaching star.

Masters At Work

To add the final bookend, let's go back to a late-clock, sideline out of bounds (SOB) play. This time it's the masters of half-court execution, Iberostar Tenerife. Txus Vidorreta calls "Timeout" with 3.7 seconds on the clock at the end of the half. This time Nanterre have fouls to give so Tenerife has to execute a catch and shoot. if they give Nanterre time to foul, they would have to inbound it again with even less time on the clock.

The video starts with long-time Nanterre  Assistant Coach (AC), Frank Le Goff detailing to the team what to expect from Tenerife out of the TO. You can see him drawing up the set that Tenerife are about to run and explaining to his team where they need to switch. Then watch the play and see that Tenerife execute and get McFadden (#12) the open look anyway.

So, again, execution or error? This time it's all about the offensive execution.

Watch the play again below. McFadden starts the decoy by setting a down- screen for (#31) Gillet. Gillet curls as if he is the shooter. Gillet distracts his man (Palsson #13) by opening for the shot but Javi Beiran inbounding the ball ignores him, knowing that McFadden is coming behind him. Watch as Gillet screens Palsson (his own man) to stop him switching onto Mcfadden. Picture perfect execution from the Canarians... Welcome back Txus, welcome back!

***Bonus mention

We definitely could have covered Pako Cruz's hail mary game-winner against Bamberg. But truthfully that was almost nothing to do with execution and much more about a one in one hundred shot. Credit Pako Cruz for that one.  There was the Promitheas full-court play and we also could have talked about the return of J'Covan Brown and Josh Owen's alley-oops. There has been plenty of other outstanding execution to talk about as well.  We will get to as much of it as we can throughout the season. In the meantime, if you see anything, please feel free to get in touch and tell us if you want to see a play looked at. 

The Basketball Champions League's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA or the Basketball Champions League.

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