In the blink of an eye, the 2022 Men's Basketball European Championship has reached its sixth matchday. The group stage schedule has passed the halfway point, and the situation of the qualifications of each group has gradually become clear, some teams have locked in the qualifications, and some teams are still struggling to fight, and even have to see other people's faces.
In this tournament, we have really felt how high the overall average of European basketball is. The gap in strength between the national teams is not obvious, and even if there is a huge disparity in the pre-match rankings, the game is still difficult to score. From the evening of September 6 to the early morning of September 7, Beijing time, another 12 games were staged, and the fate of many teams may have taken another turn.
Bosnia and Herzegovina lost to France, and Lithuania was still hopeful
On the evening of September 6, Beijing time, during the group match between France and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the group stage of Group B, anxious Lithuanian players appeared in the sideline passage. When France led Bosnia and Herzegovina by 13 points in the final moments of the fourth quarter, a big stone in the heart of the Lithuanian player finally landed. France beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 81-68 to win three straight, while Lithuania still has a glimmer of life.
Previously, with Bosnia and Herzegovina winning two games under the excellent performance of Moussa and Nurkic, as of September 6, Lithuania was temporarily in 5th place in the group with 0 wins and 3 losses, and if Bosnia and Herzegovina beat France, Lithuania would be eliminated early.
"It's a bit difficult, not just on our own, but we also have to look at the results of other teams. That's the thing, we can only think of the good. Valanciunas said of lithuania's qualifying situation.
Varan went on to say, "We have a day to relax, and we'll face everything we can face. It's too late to look back at the other games, we have to see what we're going to face and get ready for the next two games. It's not easy, we control what we can control, we can't control the other teams. ”
As the "death group" of this competition, the competition in Group B is quite fierce, and perhaps losing a little more will affect the final group ranking. France, after losing to Germany, played the spirit of twelve points and did not dare to support it again. The course of this match against Bosnia and Herzegovina was also full of twists and turns. In the fourth quarter of the game, Nurkic hit two consecutive three-pointers to help Bosnia and Herzegovina lead. Subsequently, the French team strengthened its defense, causing Bosnia and Herzegovina to make mistakes in succession and play a counterattack. Post-match data showed that France scored 22 points through mistakes, while Bosnia and Herzegovina scored only 8 points through France's mistakes. In the fourth quarter of the game, the former Shanghai Sharks foreign assistant Galcia Yalzin Yabucele defended Nurkic and was a clever move for the French team, and in a certain defensive round, Yabuselae used the speed advantage to directly steal Nurkic and counterattack the layup.
In this game, Yabusela contributed 15 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals.
After this game, France rose to 2nd place in Group B with 3 wins and 1 loss, behind Germany with 3 wins and 0 losses, and Bosnia and Herzegovina dropped to 4th with 2 wins and 2 losses. After surviving the dead, the Lithuanian team was full of fighting spirits. In the ensuing match against Hungary, the last place in the group, Lithuania beat Hungary 87-64 to win the group stage for the first time.
After that, their next game will be directly against Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time, I really responded to that sentence: even if you decide to be high, you will also be divided into life and death.
The schedule was too dense and was complained about by Fournier and Doncic
Since the start of the European Championship, at least 6 games have been played every day. If there is another "super match day", none of the 24 teams on that day will be spared. As we all know, back-to-back games are huge in terms of physical and mental consumption of players. As a result, after four days of intensive schedules, many players have been overwhelmed, and the first person who dares to complain to FIBA is French captain and outside core Evan Fournier.
According to the schedule, the group stage starts on September 1st And ends on the evening of September 8th. In just 8 days, 24 teams had to play five rounds of group matches, so back-to-back matches were inevitable. So Fournier asked FIBA to revise the euro group stage schedule so that players could get more rest.
"It's the European Championship and we have back-to-back games. Back-to-back matches are hard. Back-to-back games in the NBA and back-to-back games in the European Championship are two different things. There are fewer races here, so the intensity is higher. When you play at 8:30 p.m., you usually have to wait until 3 a.m. to fall asleep. It's really a big challenge. Honestly, everyone is. It would be great if FIBA could change and give us more breaks between games. ”
Slovenian defender Luka Doncic also responded positively to Fournier's views. Doncic said in an interview after training: "We will play 4 games in 5 days. Yesterday, we basically played 2 games in 24 hours. Yes, this should change. Everybody has very little break, you know, that's what can lead to injuries, more injuries can happen, especially the club won't be happy. ”
"I agree with Fournier that more rest is always good." Doncic added.
In Slovenia's defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina on September 5, Doncic played poorly, feeling cold on the outside and shooting 0-of-8 from three-point range. His loss of focus on the outside was also a big reason for Slovenia's upset loss, while Bosnia and Herzegovina coach Aziz Bekir saw fatigue as an important reason for Doncic's decline.
"It's game 3 in 4 days and all the teams are going to make Doncic tired. He was tired, but Zanan Moussa and Nurkic were also tired, and I think fatigue affected us even more. But most importantly, we played more like a team. Beckier said.
European games emphasize physical confrontation more than the NBA, and physical fitness is also depleted faster in positional warfare. Some teams have to finish the game the night before and then play again the next afternoon or evening, which is undoubtedly a huge test of the player's physical fitness, but also increases the risk of injury. Doncic's interview mentioned that "especially the club will not be happy", this sentence is really to the point. After all, the "Greek monster" as strong as a steel bone, Giannis Antetokounmpo, also felt some discomfort in his knees and chose to take a break. Fortunately, in the early morning of the 6th, Greece played against the weakest British team, even if the alphabet brother was suspended, Greece still easily defeated the British team 93-77.
Alphabet Brother is the most valuable asset of the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Bucks naturally don't want to see the MVP get injured on the international court. To this end, the Bucks solemnly sent a logistics support team composed of many people to serve the alphabet brother. The logistics support team includes bucks assistant coach Oppenheimer, Bucks strength training team leader Hobson, Bucks physiotherapists Smar and Buske, and flanagan led the sports science team. According to Sport24 reporter Harris Stavrou, alphabet brother's rotation break in the greek team against the United Kingdom team was because the Bucks did not allow him to play 5 days and 4 games.
However, after the letter brother's rotation is over, and then release the energetic letter brother, that is, no one can stop the descending tiger.
13 of 18 shooting, 15 of 18 from the free throw line, slashing 41 points and 9 rebounds! This is the data that Alphabet Brother came up with in the early morning of September 7 against Ukraine, and Greece beat Ukraine by 20 points with Alphabet Brother's "Demon King".
Chris Middleton, who was sitting on the sidelines watching the game at the moment, was smiling, and I had seen this face a lot.
Ukraine locked in the round of 16 early and Serbia won an easy streak
In the Group C match on 6 September, Ukraine beat Italy 84-73, unexpectedly becoming the first team in the group to lock up a place in the round of 16 early. In the first three rounds of the group stage, only ukraine, Serbia, Germany and Greece have maintained a total victory, and Serbia is undoubtedly the least challenged of these four teams. Serbia's overall strength is the best in Group D, and after their big win over Finland, their combined net win score has reached 67 points in the past three games, and the total score of 281 points has also surpassed all 24 participating teams.
Compared with the continuous hard battles of Alphabet Brother and Doncic, Jokic played easily. At present, Mr. Yo can contribute 16.7 points, 10.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game, shooting 58.3% from the field. What makes all the NBA colleagues envious is that Mr. Yo's average playing time is only 24.4 minutes per game, often clocking in for three quarters.
Next, Serbia's opponents in the group stage were Israel and Poland. In terms of strength, even if their record is good in the same group, it is clear that neither team will be a rival to Serbia. As mentioned earlier, the intensive schedule of the European Championship has fatigued many strong teams, and the less Jokic consumes in the intensive group stage, the more favorable it will be for Serbia in the later knockout stages.