20 October, 2020
09 May, 2021
23/04/2021
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Dynamic duos: Nizhny Novgorod vs. Casademont Zaragoza

MIES (Switzerland) - The Final 8 is serious business and it will culminate in crowning the 2020-21 Basketball Champions League champion, but it is also a big celebration of our sport, so it should be (and it will be) a great deal of fun, too.

What better way to bring some levity to the whole affair than to treat each of the four Quarter-Finals as an entertaining basketball arcade game that entered popular culture?

The Final 8 hosts, Nizhny Novgorod, are facing Casademont Zaragoza in the first Quarter-Final on May 5, and we have picked Kasey Shepherd and Andrey Vorontsevich from the Russian team and pitted them against Dylan Ennis and Nicolas Brussino from the Spanish side in a ... 2-on-2 basketball comparison!

SCORING

Boomshakalaka Rating: Nizhny 75% -- Zaragoza 70%

Nizhny duo: Kasey Shepherd has captivated the league in his maiden BCL season, to the degree that he was named Play-Offs MVP. He is a score-first point guard and he makes no bones about it, averaging 18.1 points per game as the seventh-leading scorer in the 2020-21 competition. He could polish a little bit his finishing around the basket and go to the free-throw line more often, but crucially for such a volume scorer, his average effective field goal percentage (eFG%) is 57.1 percent. As for veteran Andrey Vorontsevich, although he has never tried to be a big scorer in his career, he's made such a huge impact since joining Nizhny in March that he contributes 14 points per game on an outstanding eFG% of 66.7 percent almost without even trying to take shots.

Zaragoza duo: Dylan Ennis leads Zaragoza in scoring with 14.8 points per game (up from 12.2 points per game in 2019-20) and a very solid average eFG% of 49.7 percent. He is the 20th leading scorer in the league this season but, in terms of endurance and availability, he is in a league of his own. Zaragoza went through several roster changes and two coach changes this past year but they can always count on the Canadian guard to make himself available, to play his game and to carry the offensive load. Brussino meanwhile has stretches where he takes over and gets the hot hand, especially from downtown, but he is not so consistent as a scorer because he focuses on many other things on the court. The Argentinian is averaging 9.6 points per game on an eFG% of 53.3 percent.

PASSING

Boomshakalaka Rating: Nizhny 70% -- Zaragoza 80%

Nizhny duo: Shepherd has shown improved court vision through the course of the season and has become more than a willing passer, to the degree that he is now averaging 4.9 assists per game and an assist ratio of 21.1, which places him above most other point guards. Vorontsevich meanwhile has always been one of the best passing power forwards in Europe, showing an exceptional ability to distribute the ball from the elbow, and of course he's brought along his attributes to Nizhny and he is averaging 2.8 assists per game and an assist ratio of 18.8.

Zaragoza duo: If it weren't for some legendary passers like Marcelinho Huertas, Nico Brussino would probably be considered, pound for pound, the best passer in the BCL - not the best passing forward, the best passer altogether. The Argentinian small forward has an outlandish assist ratio of 30.4, which means that he dishes an assist in more than 30 percent of the possessions he uses. He is only 19th in assists in the league with 4.6 per game, largely because he plays a relatively low 23.5 minutes on average. Ennis on the other hand might give the impression that he is looking to score first and foremost, but he is a very capable passer in the right spots and he is averaging 3.4 assists per game on an assist ratio of 17.7.

CLUTCH

Boomshakalaka Rating: Nizhny 70% -- Zaragoza 80%

Nizhny duo: This is the only Quarter-Final pair whose paths have actually crossed earlier in the season, and the two games between them were a tight affair, with Zaragoza winning both. Shepherd had two of his three worst shooting games of the season against the Spanish team, shooting 35.7 percent from the floor in the first and 38.9 percent in the second, and Zaragoza were effective in limiting his impact down the stretch. Vorontsevich joined Nizhny in the Play-Offs so he hasn't yet played against Zaragoza and he wasn't involved in any close games, but his experience is almost a guarantee of his reliability in crunch time.

Zaragoza duo: Ennis hit an incredible game-winning three-pointer 18 seconds from time for Zaragoza to beat Nizhny 78-75 in the season opener on November 11 and it was not the first (not the last, for that matter) time he knocked down a dagger. The Canadian is the kind of leader who will willingly take the last shot but he can also recognize when it's more beneficial for the team to delegate that responsibility. Ennis had a similarly important role when the two teams met again on January 5, and helped Zaragoza climb back from a 12-point deficit and prevail over Nizhny 98-92 in overtime. Brussino didn't have such an instrumental role in either one of those two games but he has demonstrated on different occasions that his ability to come up with steals, pass the ball and drill triples is hugely important in the clutch.

X-FACTOR

Boomshakalaka Rating: Nizhny 80% -- Zaragoza 65%

Nizhny duo: Nizhny's style of play is very aesthetically pleasing to basketball purists in large part because they execute so well, and you can't have that sort of execution without discipline. Shepherd doesn't step out of the script but he has freedom to improvise his lines now and then and, because he normally comes off the bench, he makes a habit of changing the direction of a game in his team's favor. Vorontsevich is the teammate every player wants on their side when the going gets tough. He won’t fill up the stat sheet, but his presence is so reassuring that he can help everybody keep a calm head and maintain focus.

Zaragoza duo: There is a similar quality to Ennis and Brussino in that they seem to be entirely fearless and don't understand the concept of giving up. They give you the impression that they will keep fighting to win even if their team is trailing by double digits and time is running out, so there is no question that you want them on your team when you need to turn a game on its head. However, there is a downside to this and they both can be streaky shooters, and because they take quite a lot of three-pointers they sometimes tend to take bigger risks with a contested or long three.