Sportradar breaks down the exciting showdowns on tap this week
Stats review: A look ahead at the Play-In Showdown
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The most efficient regular season in Turkish Airlines EuroLeague history has come to a close setting the stage for a pair of compelling Play-In Showdown matchups featuring the league’s two most improved teams from last year, this season’s lone newcomer, and a Real Madrid team that made it to the championship game each of the last three seasons. Last year’s Play-In action saw the two higher seeds advance to the field with the seventh-place finisher, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv, pushing the eventual champions, Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, to the limit in their subsequent encounter in the quarterfinals.
Given their recent run of Final Four appearances, Real Madrid is certainly capable of making a similar splash from the lower half of the playoff seedings. Los Blancos will start their quest for a quarterfinals berth against Paris Basketball, who they will face at Movistar Arena for the second time in 12 days. Earning a narrow 105-104 win in Round 33 thanks to an outstanding fourth quarter, Madrid notched a key win — its fifth straight — over their Play-In opponent just over a week ago.
The difference late in that game were the shots Madrid was getting out of pick-and-rolls and with Paris creating a EuroLeague record 56% of its offense in the half-court operating out of ball screens, pick-and-roll play figures to be the key to this impending matchup as well. Despite its success down the stretch offensively, Madrid struggled to neutralize Paris’s ball screen attack on the road in their first meeting in Round 16 even in the absence of TJ Shorts, but beyond the heroics of Maodo Lo that night, the hosts otherwise struggled to make shots. Generating 64 points of out ball screens in that game and 66 in their game early in April, Paris has easily exceeded its league-best 42 points created per game in both of those losses to Madrid. How that holds up this week will certainly be something to follow as the club looks to push into the quarterfinals in its maiden EuroLeague voyage.
For Madrid’s part, it averaged 51 points created per game out of pick-and-rolls in its two games against Paris — well above the 34.6 per game average for the rest of the season. While Facundo Campazzo does a lot of heavy lifting there, Dzanan Musa had one of his most productive efforts of the season sliding on the ball in Madrid’s win earlier this month. How these two teams approach guarding pick-and-rolls and what adjustments they make figure to factor heavily into the outcome on Tuesday. Madrid finished in the top five in pick-and-roll defense on the year while Paris finished right at the EuroLeague average.
In the other game on Tuesday, the league’s two most improved teams face off in a test of their season splits. FC Bayern Munich has been exceptional at home this season going 13-4 to mark its first season at SAP Garden. Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade, in contrast, was this season’s lone team to finish with the same record on the road that it posted at home. After suffering one of its worst defeats of the season in Belgrade in Round 12, Bayern scored a comfortable victory in Munich in Round 28.
That has been the story of the season as Bayern has elevated its game on both ends of the floor at home. Scoring a pristine 1.08 points per possession that eclipses Panathinaikos’s league-best 1.07 average for the season at SAP Garden, but allowing a massive 1.10 points per possession defensively that falls well below this season’s least effective defense away from home, Bayen has operated on the extremes for most of the year. Much of that disparity can be traced to the accuracy of its role players from beyond the arc, something that will be worth monitoring against a Zvezda defense that has done an excellent job defending the perimeter this season.
Filip Petrusev was the standout in the November victory in Belgrade Arena, but picked up 2 quick fouls and played only a few minutes in Zvezda’s March loss. Carsen Edwards had a similarly uneven pair of games from Bayern’s side scoring only 3 points over 8 shots in their loss but 30 points over 17 in their win. Who steps up figures to be something to monitor in this game as well.
If seeds hold, Bayern would get a chance to score its second road victory over the season over Paris while Zvezda would look to complete the season sweep, having won both of their previous matchups. Should Paris score the upset, Bayern could get a chance to notch its second win in Madrid of the year after claiming a victory there in Round 1 while Zvezda would be seeking its first triumph of the season over the historic Spanish club.
After seeds held in the Play-In Showdown last year and created one of the more dramatic quarterfinals matchups in recent memory, it will interesting to see how things shake out this time.