NOVGOROD (Russia) - The first Quarter-Final of the 2021 Basketball Champions League Final 8 sees the hosts Nizhny Novgorod take on Casademont Zaragoza. The game will be the final instalment of a trilogy of games between the two squads this season. The Spaniards are the only team to have beaten Nizhny twice this season but don't let that fool you into assuming that would make it easier to do it a third time. 

Let's take a closer look at both team's journey thus far and how they might play.

Nizhny Novgorod

The data story above charts Nizhny Novgorod's season on a game by game basis for the key statistics that impact winning basketball games. Below we see where they rank amongst Final 8 teams for the same statistical categories. 

Effective Field Goal Shooting: 58% (Second)

Turnover Percentage: 16.4% (Eighth)

Offensive Rebound Percentage: 24.4% (Sixth)

Free Throw Ratio: 14.3% (Eighth)

Offensive Rating: 115.4 points per 100 possessions (Fourth)

Defensive Rating: 105.9 points per 100 possessions (Third)

The first sheet on your screen when you look at Nizhny's data story is "Possessions".  What you see here is the number of possessions in each game for Nizhny so far this season. The color scale is set with any game below average on the blue scale and anything above average on the magenta scale. What we can clearly see that since the Play-Offs began the trend for Nizhny has been downwards in terms of the number of possessions per game. This decrease in possessions has also seen Nizhny results and performances go up another level. The Russians went 4-0 to start the Play-Offs and became the first team to Qualify for the Final 8. The clear outlier of the season was the Gameday 5 loss to Zaragoza with 86 possessions. It's also worth noticing the second-highest possession count of the season was Gameday 1, also against Zaragoza.

If we slide over to the "Ratings" tab we can see Nizhny's Offensive and Defensive Ratings on a game by game basis. We can also filter for Home/Road or Result.  We can clearly see Nizhny's standout performance of the season when it comes to efficiency was the Play-Offs Gameday 4 win over AEK at home. They held the 2018 winners to just 86.7 points per 100 possessions. Their Net Rating of +40.5 points per 100 possessions was also a season-high. This scoreline in that game was 88-60 win for Nizhny and the heaviest defeat ever inflicted on AEK in the BCL. However impressive the Russians had been up until this point in the season, it was this game and the 96-82 win over Turk Telekom only two days earlier that really marked Nizhny Novgorod as a serious threat this season.

The other point of note in relation to Nizhny's defense this season is how well it has served them on the road. The road trip to Nizhny Novgorod has taken so many victims over the previous seasons in the BCL and it's well known as one of the toughest places to visit. If we filter for road games, we can see that Nizhny have found a way to dramatically improve their consistency outside Russia. They have won four of six on the road this season and on each occasion it has been thanks to dominant defensive performances. In all four of those wins Nizhny held opponents to less than 100 points per 100 possessions. The best performance was clearly the Gameday 3 win in Poland against Start Lublin. 

If we look at where Nizhny amongst Final 8 teams we can see that shooting is clearly a major strength for the Russians. The main driver behind their second-ranked Effective Field Goal Percentage (58 percent) is their elite 3-point shooting. When it comes to the combination of volume and efficiency, Nizhny have a strong claim to be the best 3-point shooting team in the league this year. They have drained 11.3 shots per game from behind the arc, which is tied for the most with Tenerife, and also made those shots at 43.5 percent which is second only to Pinar Karsiyaka at 45 percent. 

If we look at Nizhny's shot map above, we can see that the right corner is the hottest of hotspots for Nizhny. They shoot 58.8 percent from there. After that, the sweet spots are at the rim (61 percent), the left wing (43 percent), the right wing (41.7 percent), and the left corner (41 percent). The painted area is their highest volume shooting zone. They take 30.3 percent of all their shots in that area.

How they might play

In a world where people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for NFT's of NBA highlights, if we had to create an NFT of Nizhny's season so far it would probably be the play in the video below. We could possibly find a play with all five Nizhny players touching the ball but none with better execution of what Nizhny basketball is all about. Note the timing of the late "Twist" on the ball screen by #21 Toropov, the perfect synchronization of the three other perimeter players sliding up to make space for #2 Shepherd relocating to the corner, then the perfect timing of passes as the ball fizzes from the short-roll into a touch pass from #4 Komolov to Shepherd in the corner. 

The other impressive thing about that play is how difficult it was to read for the defense.  The video below is the same set to start but with a very different action as the option to create the shot. It's this versatility and unpredictability that has made Nizhny such a difficult team to stop this season.

If we are looking at the core of what makes this team click on the offensive end it is spacing. This team generates so many of it's offensive advantages and most efficient shots from spot-up situations. They are always looking to reverse the ball side to side quickly or search out skip passes that attack defenders getting sucked into the paint. They regularly use the player in the weakside post to seal or pin help defenders in. 

Watch #5 Gankevich in the first clip and #21 Toropov in the second clip. Then the play in the final clip should be familiar to you by now, only this time with another option again to create the shot. And again Gankevich sealing the defense in as the skip pass flies.

They also use a huge variety of different off-ball screens to create impossible problems for defenses. Much like the first clip where the short roll created the advantage and extra pass for Shepherd, in the clip below watch how they used a weakside flare screen as the defense was collapsing on the roller.

 

Casademont Zaragoza

Effective Field Goal Shooting: 53.5% (Sixth)

Turnover Percentage: 14% (Third)

Offensive Rebound Percentage: 20.8% (Seventh)

Free Throw Ratio: 14.3% (Eighth)

Offensive Rating: 112.8 points per 100 possessions (Eighth)

Defensive Rating: 109.7 points per 100 possessions (Fourth)

When we look at the Possessions tab for Zaragoza's data story we can clearly see this is an uptempo team. In fact with an average of 77.8 possessions per game, they play at the highest pace in the Final 8. This high pace translates directly to fastbreak points, they average 14.5 points per game on the break, second only to Nymburk. The color scale on the data story ranges from purple for below-average possessions to red for above average. We can clearly see five red bars for the games when Zaragoza played in games with more than 80 possessions. They won four of those games, closing out the Regular Season with their two highest-pace games; the aforementioned road win at Nizhny and the home win against Start Lublin.

If we look at Zaragoza's efficiency ratings we can see how important this pace is to the Spaniards on the offensive end. They actually rank eighth amongst teams at Final 8 offensively but due to the high pace they play at, they still score a high volume of points. In terms of efficiency, this squad is much stronger on the defensive end. Their best defensive performance of the season was the Play-Offs Gameday 2 win at home to Bamberg, where they held the Germans to just 83.4 points per 100 possessions. Conversely we can also see that the following game on the road in Bamberg was also their worst defensive performance of the season.

One of the stats that is often indicative of low pace teams is a high Offensive Rebound Percentage. Given that an offensive rebound doesn't create a new possession, it actually extends the time of the possession by a potential 14 seconds. With this in mind it should come as no surprise that a high pace team like Zaragoza haven't placed a high priority on the offensive glass.

They pull down just 20.8 percent of their misses, ranking seventh out of eighth at the Final 8. What is maybe interesting is that we can also clearly see that the Play-Offs resulted in a dramatic increase in their Offensive Rebound Percentage, with the home win against Sassari seeing their best performance on the glass all season. This increase could be down to opponents but given the fact that Sassari are an interior focused team, that seems the less likely explanation. It's more likely that Zaragoza have upped the level of priority placed on the offensive glass in the knockout rounds. 

If we look at the chart below, Zaragoza’s shot profile has three clear sweet spots; at the rim where they shoot 75.8 Percent (only Burgos are more efficient at the rim), from the top of the key where they shoot 41 percent, and the right corner at 38 percent. Whilst Zaragoza are one of the most efficient teams at Final 8 for shots at the rim, they combine their efficiency with also taking 24.4 percent of all their shots down there (only Tenerife and Karsiyaka attempt more). They also take 23 percent of their shots in the paint for a combined 47 percent of their shot attempts in the total painted area. Only Karsiyaka attempt more total paint shots.

How they might play

Changing the head coach between the Round of 16 and the Final 8 will have certainly been a challenge for both Luis Casimiro coming in and the players having to adapt to new philosophies so late in the season. However, that doesn't need to be a disadvantage, in fact, it comes with one very clear advantage, it makes them unpredictable. We can't really say for sure what we can expect to see from Zaragoza in Russia but that also means Nizhny will also have some question marks as well.

What hasn't changed is the makeup of the squad and what style of basketball we can expect to see from this set of players. These guys love to run and they have a wide array of shot makers. As you can see in the clip below, even if teams play good transition defense, slow the ball and clog the paint, there is always likely to three or even four players more than willing to pull the trigger on an early 3-point attempt. 

The core of what makes this squad hard to guard is the versatility and positionless nature of the roster. We regularly see Ennis and Sulaimon operating as combo-guards that either act as scorers or set the play and the likes of Brussino and Barreiro playing as combo-forwards. With Harris, Wiley and Benzing this regularly means we have seen three forwards on the floor at the same time - perfect for their uptempo style.

Much like Sergio Hernandez before him, Luis Casimiro will be able to use a wide variety of different lineups due to the fact that so many players within this squad can slide across into different roles. If you look at the clip below, Zaragoza are in a small-ball lineup with Wiley at 6'8" (2.03m) playing the five and setting the ball screen. But with Brussino 6'7" and Barreiro 6'8" (2.03m) sharing duties in the forward spots, it gives them the ability to pose other matchup questions of the defense, especially with Wiley's inevitable footspeed advantage at the five.

Again in the clip below, we can see Zaragoza with three skilled players over 6'8". For the defense it's a challenge to know who to match up your big men with when Robin Benzing at 6'11" (2.11m) is the tallest player but also a perimeter threat, and both Wiley or Elias Harris are also matchup headaches. In this case, we see Zaragoza running empty corner pick-and-roll for Harris and when the defense switches it forces them to help early on Harris down low. He finds a cutting Wiley at the rim. 

With Justiz at 6'11"and Hlinason 7'1" (2.15m) they have legitimate size as well for more traditional lineups. Nizhny will remember well trying to defend sets like this with the two bigs working together.

 

The matchup

For Nizhny Novgorod the entire Final 8 tournament should feel like a huge celebration, especially with their fans behind them. That does come with the pressure of avoiding a knockout in the Quarter-Final. They will be hoping this could be a case of third time lucky against the Spaniards and for that to happen they will need to be at their best. Their Play-Offs MVP Kasey Shepherd scored 13 and 16 points respectively in the first two games but only shot 35 percent and 38 percent in the two games. He has had an incredible season since then and they will need him at his best. One thing that can rely on him for is scoring when it counts, Shepherd has been excellent in close games this season. If Nizhny does have a secret weapon in this game it has to be the veteran Vorontsevich. He has averaged 14 points and 7 rebounds since he arrived and certainly helps Nizhny pose a few extra questions of their own in the frontcourt battle.

For Casademont Zaragoza this is a second Final 8 in their first two seasons in the BCL. This competition has been great for them and they have been great for it. Last year few would have picked them to get past Lenovo Tenerife but they did. The experience of that AEK roster was just too much in the Semi-Final. This time around they are more experienced and nobody will be writing them off. Across the two games against Nizhny in the Regular Season Dylan Ennis and Robin Benzing combined for 83 points. They will need both to be equally as on point to find a second win in Nizhny Novgorod this season. What they didn't have in either of those last two games was Elias Harris and Jacob Wiley. The energy, hustle and athleticism they both bring could be key for Luis Casimiro and Zaragoza.