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On Friday, the Kaunas team “Žalgiris” in the Euroleague will begin the battles of the second round and meet the worst team of the tournament: “Chimki” from the Moscow region.
The team trained by Rimas Kurtinaitis could not dream of even the worst nightmare that only the teams Crvena Zvezda from Belgrade and Zenit from Saint Petersburg would win in the first round, and their game with 6 main basketball players and 3 youngsters will be better than that shown by the complete team.
24 million The club, which has a budget of € 1 billion, has suffered a total collapse as it already has only a very theoretical chance of reaching the quarter-finals, winning every second-round match or failing in a single failure in 17 games, which is an impossible mission. Let’s take a look at the causes of the Chimki tragedy.
While the budget was reduced by 10 million. However, in the summer, Chimki signed a contract with Greg Monroe, got Jordan Mickey back and acquired Errick McCollum, who was invited to replace Jeremy Evans, Anthony Gill and Chris Kramer, who left.
Although such purchases raised many doubts, R. Kurtinaitis himself said that G. Monroe is one of the best spinning centers in the Euroleague. It was a purchase from the strategist himself, who was lazy to defend on the field, and in many games he simply did not show the will to fight. Not surprisingly, this American was the first to stay in Chimki. And that turn of the game in the Euroleague was only mediocre – 0.794 points per attack, which is only 42nd in the entire Euroleague.
Chimki wanted Thomas Walkup, for whom they would have paid a ransom, but the American himself decided to stay in Žalgiris, knowing that he would not get a stable role in the team and that although he would be a player, he would have practically no ball in his hands. The defender chose a team with a lower salary but better performance, as evidenced by this season’s results.
Another dubious move is E. McCollum’s invitation. Chimki seemed in need of an organizer, a team player, a black, and a defense specialist, and he invited a scorer. E.Mccollumo’s defense ratings are very low, and in offense he benefited in 4 games out of 12. In general, this player’s performance can be described as extreme, scoring more than 20 utility points or playing poorly. Only the acquisition of J.Mickey can be considered a logical decision and he, while greeting, demonstrates a good game.
We talked a lot about Chimki’s bad play last season already, but even though he was scraping all the seams, he managed to get close to the top eight and was in the quarter-final zone on the day of the season finale. It seemed like it was a good sign for R. Kurtinaitis to draw conclusions, but the defensive game got even worse and the attack was less effective. A weakening of the defense could have been anticipated as early as the summer, as all the outgoing players were much better at defense than the incoming basketball players. There is no aggression on the perimeter, which was given by Ch. Kramer, there is no active and agile J. Evans on defense, nor A. Gillo, who looked solidly at his basket. There are no basketball players on the team now who can be called good defenders.
Devin Booker and John Jerebko are looking their best in terms of effort and defensive ranking. True, the latter’s career at Chimki may be over, at least as announced. Coincidence or not, but both he and Janis Timma haven’t competed since last week due to alleged injuries. I wonder if we will see the Swede and the Latvian in a yellow jersey.
In defense, Chimki has the biggest problems against opponents “two against two” and a fast attack. According to this last indicator it is the last of the tournament, according to Pikenrolo braking – only 15, and before the opponents’ shots from static – also only 15. All in all, Chimki is the team with the worst defensive rating.
How would R. Kurtinaitis respond to that? Since Chimki performs short attacks, the opponents have more opportunities for their attacks, but this is not the goal, as the loss point ranking is not calculated based on the total number of attacks, but is averaged over 100 attacks. Generally speaking, no matter how many opponents have attacks (30 or 50), the rating is still counted above 100 and this shows the productivity of the defense. If Chimki allows an opponent Pikenrolui win 0.922 points per attack, that’s a lot. It is very easy to allow defenders to invade the penalty area and thus collapse the entire defense, which looks very poor in command.
Well, Chimki is not designed to defend himself, which means that he has to make up for everything in attack, but there are also big problems here: there are only 4 teams doubled up: much less talented players in Vilerbana ASVEL, Berlin ALBA, Crvena Zvezda from Belgrade and Fenerbach from Istanbul. ”Which has recently started playing more successfully.
The attack lacks variety and is very often chosen to attack from a distance: 27.2 attempts per game, which is the second result, only surpassed by Real Madrid. The correctness is 0.10 percent. better than the Madriders (37.37%), but the Spanish club plays well in the penalty area, which does not mean Chimki, who attacks only 52.1% from closer, which is the twelfth result. The attack schemes themselves are not bad or very different from other competitors, their implementation is very bad. Combinations are often aborted, barriers are not removed, or no other solutions are found when an attack is blocked. Here it is already possible to pinch the finger of the basketball IQ of the players and the details of the coach.
Kurtinaitis
Alexei Švedas is heavily criticized in Lithuania, who supposedly destroys the game, is selfish and “Chimki” supposedly should have allowed him to leave in the summer. Many of these statements are a matter of interpretation, but it should be noted that with A. Sueco himself, “Chimki” had 8 wins after the first round last year, and after 28 rounds – 13. Has this defender really become in that destructive factor in just 8- 9 months?
A. Sweden’s shortcomings are clearly visible: a big ego on the pitch. If there is a situation that can be solved “one by one”, he will definitely do it and will not look at teammates, it is better to run a “brick” from 9 meters. You can fire the same shot in a quick attack. Russians often get angry when they put him on a bench, although this is extremely rare – he competes even after 33 minutes, which is absolutely the most in the tournament.
A.Švedo’s defense rating is the second worst among players who played at least 100 minutes this season: 108.7 misses per 100 attacks. Chimki plays worse with Stefan Jovičius (110.4 points per 100 attacks). In the attack with A.Švedas “Chimki” more than 100 attacks won 96.7 points and this is the fourth best result of the team. The “plus / minus” rating, which sometimes does not show the real situation, is not favorable for A. Švedas either: minus 88 and worse only when J. Jerebko (-95) coincides.
Swede is Chimki’s brightest star, like Scottie Wilbekin at Maccabi in Tel Aviv or Mike James at CSKA Moscow, but the difference is that the latter is the leader of a leader and Sweden is an outsider. If Dimitris Itoudis contained M. James and made him a better player than in Milan, then A. Švedas is difficult to handle and difficult to predict. Although he distributes 8.4 assists, he also collects his 14.2 shots per game. It is very obvious that if A.Švedas is without a shot for a long time, as soon as he receives the ball, he tries to force it and rubs the shot through his hands from a distance. The opponents know very well that A. Švedas is the player with the most ball and the one who makes the decisions, making defensive tasks much easier.
The desperation of Chimki’s situation is demonstrated by the fact that they lag behind their closest competitor by up to 3 wins, which they failed to achieve even in 17 rounds. It would appear that the club had to resign from the services of R. Kurtinaitis, but this did not happen: instead, Robertas Kuncaitis, Giedrius Kurtinaitis and Evaldas Kandratavičius were fired. Only Aurimas Jasilionis was allowed to stay, and Aleksandras Trifunovičius was invited to the headquarters, which was certainly not R. Kurtinaitis’ choice. In Russia, it is said that this is the person who will take over Chimki, if it is decided to remove Lithuania.
It seems really funny when problems are solved by firing coaches who have no direct impact on the game: E.Kandratavičius is a great professional in his field and he really prepared the team well physically, and G.Kurtinaitis and R.Kuncaitis are more coaches who work with players in training but do not model tactics on how to defend or attack against one or another opponent. Is that why R. Kurtinaitis still works? Colleagues in Russia told Krepsinis.net a month ago that the strategist would not be fired because the sponsor he found had made a very large contribution to Chimki’s budget and was therefore inviolable.
Another version claims that Chimki is under the influence of agent Obrad Fimičius, who represents A. Švedas, R. Kurtinaitis and four other Russians, including Yegor Vialcev and Vyacheslav Zaitsev. Guess who represents the interests of A.Trifunovičius? You guessed it, O.Fimičius. Chimki was eager to save Sweden in the summer, and Fimičius gave false news in the media about alleged offers from China or Real, which was just a hoax to scare Chimki and make him lose his brightest star, which is supposed to be. a hoax. It also allowed the negotiation of certain additional conditions that allowed for greater influence.
Chimki crossed a series of defeats with great force in psychology, as the team did not play in the United League for most of December, and losing game after game in Euroleague never proved that victory until victory over Parma in Perm. , which cut off Chimki’s 6 weeks of victories. hungry. Krasnodar’s Lokomotiv-Kuban were also beaten last weekend, which further improved the mood.
Chimki would look even more dangerous if he had J. Jerebko, but neither he nor J. Timma would be, and Sergey Monia’s participation in the match remains a question mark. In that case, J.Mickey and D.Booker will have to play for a very long minute, and someone will push him into an awkward “fourth number” position. Last week, after the defeat against Piraeus Olympiacos, R. Kurtinaitis argued that there was a lack of rotation in the position of the forwards and the opponents lost the fight for the balls (27:36) precisely due to lack of height and high fouls accumulated, because S. Monia finished the game early. D.Booker and J. Mickey.
Although “Chimki” is an outsider to the Euroleague, and “Žalgiris” is considered by the bookies to be the clear favorite of the duel, it would be too early for Kaunas to register the 11th victory, because the opponent has so much talent and potential to win. R. Kurtinaitis may need the help of Žalgiris, because in the fight for a place in the quarterfinals, the team’s victory in the tail against direct rivals Kaunas would be very useful.
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