MIES (Switzerland) - The first week of Quarter-Finals games in the Basketball Champions League Season X, powered by Ameresco SUNEL is in the books, with Rytas Vilnius, AEK BC, Unicaja, and La Laguna Tenerife all claiming 1-0 leads at home.
In each game, the winning team relied heavily on one player to provide the extra push to get over line.
We dived into the film to look at what worked for each player, and where the adjustments will need to be made for ERA Nymburk, Asisa Joventut, ALBA BERLIN, and Galatsaray MCT Technic, if they are to have any chance of getting their respective series back on level ground.
ERA Nymburk vs. Rytas Vilnius
As expected, Rytas leaned heavily into Jerrick Harding to do the damage in Game 1.
Like several of our stars in the BCL before him, Harding started his career in Nymburk, but he wasn't about to let his obvious affection for the club and coach Oren Amiel get in the way of doing what he needed to do on the floor.
"It was kind of a little weird out there because I’m playing my team against my old team. I was there for two years in Nymburk when I first started in Europe. Against the coach that was my coach at the time, but I'm just happy we got the the win tonight," Harding stated after Game 1.
What was maybe not expected about the way that Rytas leaned into the Harding factor, was that all of his buckets came from playing away from the ball.
We are used to seeing Harding operating as a playmaker, but in this game, he did all of his most destructive work as a floor spacer. The clip below is the perfect example of that.
Nymburk have always been a team that will look for innovative tactics to help them win games as an underdog, and what you see them doing in the clip above is called Next pick-and-roll defense.
Watch for the arrow on the screen and you will see that instead of using the screener's defender to defend the ball screen, Nymburk's #11 Matej Svoboda leaves Speedy Smith as they bring the next man over to help on the ball handler.
The challenge that Nymburk had in this possession, is that this coverage left #19 Ondrej Sehnal to cover both Speedy Smith on the wing and Jerrick Harding in the corner.
This was exactly what Rytas were looking for and they swung it to Harding in the corner too fast for Sehnal to get anywhere near the shot.
Harding ended the game with 19 points on six made field goals, and all of them came from situations like this where he was a floor spacer.
The question for Nymburk will be, how do they adjust their defensive schemes to give him less open looks in Game 2.
Asisa Joventut vs. AEK BC
AEK BC vs. Asisa Joventut was every bit the battle we expected it to be, with AEK needing to ride their home crowd advantage to claw the game back from Joventut's early 13-point lead.
Without question, the X-Factor in that comeback for AEK was James Nunnally. The American had 13 of his 19 points in seven minutes of action in the fourth quarter, but in reality, he had been showing his intent from the moment he stepped on the floor.
It may have been a clutch three-ball that probably sealed the deal late in the fourth, but the difference maker in this game was Nunnally's determination to get to the rack.
Joventut really struggled to find a way to guard Nunnally and stop him puncturing their defense. AEK as a team also knew exactly what they had to do to help Nunnally do his damage.
When you watched the clip above and saw the arrow on screen, hopefully you noticed RaiQuan Gray Flip the side and angle of the ball screen just as the defense set up to defend it.
Nunnally and Gray were completely on the same page and executed the flip to perfection, allowing the veteran American to get downhill and blow right past the Joventut defense on his way to the cup for two more points.
Galatasaray MCT Technic vs. La Laguna Tenerife
FIBA Patty Mills has arrived and that arrival presented Galatasaray and coach Gianmarco Pozzecco with all of the challenges we knew he would.
Mills did some of everything on his way to 20 points in just 21 minutes. He drove to the bucket and finished through contact, he hit pull ups 1vs1, and splashed threes with less space than you'd find in a phone booth.
Galatasaray tried a range of coverages against him, (1) they hedged hard to try and get the ball out of his hands, (2) they switched, and (3) they tried to use the length and athleticism of James Palmer Jr to disrupt him.
But nothing could get Mills out of his flow. The clip below is the perfect illustration of how unstoppable the Australian was.
When you see the first arrow on the screen above, what you are seeing in Palmer Jr in a Top Lock position, with his entire body shape designed to prevent Mills from using the double pin down to receive the pass.
This did work to some degree, in that Mills was only able to catch the pass without an advantage and Palmer still in touch. The next arrow you see shows you Palmer using his length to take away Mills' space to dribble left and use the ball screen.
Unfortunately for Gala, that still wasn't enough, as Mills just rejected the screen and went to his right and finished against the help defense.
Answers on a postcard if you know what adjustments Gala and Pozzecco can make to stop him in Game 2, because we certainly have no idea what they can do.
But make no mistakes, if they want to force Game 3 back in Tenerife, they will need to find a way to slow him down.
ALBA BERLIN vs. Unicaja
Unicaja's late season pick up of Justin Cobbs may have come slightly out of left field, but in Game 1, it looked like veteran smarts and elite-level basketball IQ were exactly what the doctor ordered for Ibon Navarro and the two-time defending champs.
The 35-year-old point guard had his best game with the Spanish side in the BCL, finishing with 13 points (3-of-3 from deep), 3 assists, and 2 steals, as he provided the extra push to get Unicaja over the line against a determined and hard-working ALBA BERLIN team.
While 13 points may not sound like a performance that broke a team's defensive will, sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference.
When you watch the clip below, notice how early Cobbs read the game and reacted first to set up the next play.
As Griesel drove to the bucket, keep your eyes fixed on Cobbs. He clocked before anyone else that his teammate Jonathan Barreiro had played outstanding defense and was going to block the shot.
His weight had already shifted onto his back leg before the shot had even left Griesel's hands. Whilst everyone else was still watching the ball, Cobbs had leaked out down the floor to create the fast break and highlight lob for James Webb III.
It's not that ALBA's young star Jack Kayil was slow to react to Cobbs leaking out, but that split second decision to go early made all the difference and for Kayil, competing against a veteran with the IQ of Justin Cobbs can only challenge him to improve.
And despite having 19 points himself, Kayil and ALBA will need to be even more in tune to Cobbs' craftiness in Game 2 if they are to prevent the reigning champs from locking this series up early.