I don't understand why teams don't feature DMo more in the post on the offensive end. The guy has some absolute top notch moves down low. And he is good enough with the ball in his hands that he would be very good in the high post as well.
Motiejunas has a good game in garbage time against freaking Belgium and people here already regard him as the second coming of Jesus Christ.
You somewhat have a point there. Although Belgium really surprised a lot of people by making it to the second round. I think even a team like Croatia would have a hard time against them. GG for D-Mo though.
Belgium had the easiest group in the tournament and made it through with 2 wins and 3 losses, whereas we had to win 4 games to qualify for the next round. I think we'd beat them fairly easily. Slovenia currently demolishing Greece. Gogi is playing like an MVP, while Zoki's off ball movement and hustle are superb. The brothers scored more points than the whole Greek team in the first half.
It's one crazy group. If Spain lose in last game against Italy, and Greece wins against Croatia (Finland lose to Slovenia looks pretty obvious, but still big point in this) then Spain is out of the tournament as 5th place in the group. Not making even top 8. Lithuania, France, Serbia, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia are guaranteed places in quartefinals before last games.
And if Spain wins, Greece will be eliminated, so, either way, at least one of the top teams will be out of the tournament. Belgium only made it to the second round because group A was god awful. Sorry to be a downer, but I'm with Croatian Sensation here. It's good to see D-Mo playing well, but I can't get excited over him doing so against scrubs. Alexis Ajinca looked like a stud against Latvia as well -- a team with comparable bigs to Belgium and a team that D-Mo, too, looked good against. Speaking of Ajinca, he very well might be worth a second look. Wasn't in a great situation with the Bobcats under Larry Brown. Still got a little better each year there. Not camping out on the perimeter anymore. Improved his post game. Looking to score inside now. Still a little on the light side and still could improve his rebounding some, but has made strides to the point where he's solid, at least (his EuroBasket rebounding #'s are quite good, actually). Pretty athletic. Can move his feet. Fairly good pick&roll defender. Good size & length. Will block some shots. Good basketball IQ. Great free-throw shooter for a big. Still only 25. Could be Brandan Wright-ian useful and the Rockets obviously will need an Asik replacement if/when they trade Asik. Camby might do for a year or two, even, I suppose, but if it Camby is productive, you probably want to have someone who's at least serviceable if either Howard or Camby were to go down for a few games. <iframe width="640" height="380" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5XUsg-pouvA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Oh man. You are dead on. I've liked this guy ever since I saw him in the draft. He has one of the best shooting strokes for a big long 5 in the world. And now from those clips it looks like he is really using his size and length to force the issue down low. Great clips. He looks like an NBAer. And I'd sign him immediately to a minimum salary deal. I like him even more now.
Ajinca showed good court awareness,and defended well. He has length and athleticism. He isn't much of a scorer,but I feel he can help us defend at the 4 spot which we need very much, and also at the 5 spot. DM should definitely try to get him.
The T-Mac of Greece loses in the battle of the former Rockets PGs <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QskLNqURHBI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That was a great game. Dragić already had 26 points during the middle of the third quarter and sat down when Slovenia led 62-36. He comes back in the game with a few minutes left and the score is 68-62. Spanoulis was remarkable during that run and had single-handedly erased the 26-point deficit. It wasn't enough, as Greece missed a couple of easy baskets to completely take control of the game. Dragić finished with 28-5-4, Spanoulis with 21-8-3. I'm not sold on Ajinca just yet. France's only quality opponent so far was Lithuania and he had some very bad decisions down the stretch that crippled the French run to tie the game. Though I must admit, it is encouraging to see him put up consistently good numbers.
But he embarrassed the Lithuanian frontline in the first half on both ends. They had to bench their main options and go with defense-only Javtokas to slow down Ajinca. This was the first time I saw Ajinca this year, so I was quite surprised, it was like watching Twin Peaks or some other disturbing David Lynch movie.
Title of this thread is [EuroBasket 2013] Asik, Motiejunas, Casspi, Papanikolaou & Llull -- Sep. 4–22 Those guys aren't Rockets, are they?
Opp touched his leg in air unbalancing him, and there was no call. That was scare moment before he began to yell at refs :grin: [youtube]kJQK2qxrZ_Y[/youtube] And once again, I like that strong finish - it was rare last season. Shame he hit only 1/4 3pt, but overall - nice game with good effort on defense/offense (10pts - 3/7FG, 1/4 3PFG, 3/3FT, 4 rebound and one very nice assist in 20min of play). Spoiler
