Mediolanum Forum, Fenerbahce is an opponent that Olimpia had not beaten since 2014, before the Turkish team’s streak of Final Four appearances. Second half of the game. Here is the “Play of the Game”, a combination of team play, ball circulation, creativity and, ultimately, effort.
It all starts with Amedeo Della Valle’s low post game (he scored 15 points in that game) against Muhammed Ali, formerly known as Bobby Dixon, a physically strong but very small point-guard. The Fenerbahce playmaker manages to push Della Valle towards the baseline, while Joffrey Lauvergne is boxing out Kaleb Tarczewski preventing him from becoming a relief valve for an inside pass. Fenerbahce defense covers well all the passing lanes. Jan Vesely “leaves” Luis Scola and goes down to double, Kostas Sloukas is halfway between Andrea Cinciarini and Scola himself, while Melih Mahmutoglu covers Vlado Micov on the weak side.
Della Valle, pushed along the baseline, not having the chance to find Tarczewski inside, pass it out at the top of the circle to Scola. But Sloukas is there exactly for this: when Vesely left Scola, his responsibility was to control that area, where two players are operating. The pass is slow, executed from an unbalanced position, so Sloukas attempts to steal the ball. Scola sees the danger and moving forward manages to get his hands on the ball before the Greek player, but he is too in an awkward position. He uses all his reading abilities to invent a pass behind the back for Cinciarini. It is the right play to make, in order to keep the ball and avoid the pressure of Sloukas. Furthermore, the Captain is the only one who is open: after some rotations, Vesely went to cover Della Valle, Sloukas moved towards Scola and Cinciarini remained open.
But when the ball flies from Scola to Cinciarini, Ali sprints towards the captain in a defensive move called closeout to contest the three-point shot that everyone expects. But there are still nine seconds remaining on the shot-clock, so Cinciarini has time to attack the closeout, moving in the opposite direction and catching Ali off balance. It is the key move, because the entire Fenerbhace defense reacted to it. Sloukas floats in the paint, leaving Scola again, Vesely now is overplaying the passing lane available in the corner for Della Valle, who rightly moved there to offer a further opportunity, and finally Lauvergne goes in the middle, behind Sloukas , to prevent a ground pass or an alley-oop pass for Tarczewski.
The Captain read the play perfectly: he passes it out again to Scola, the player who’s open. Mahmutoglu, a little bit slow at reacting, leaves Micov in the corner to contest Scola’s shot. He is late and Scola takes an excellent three-point shot. It would be the perfect play to gain three points. But the ball doesn’t go in. In the meantime, there is another smart and effort play made in the shadow by Kaleb Tarczewski. Until then, Lauvergne has eliminated him from the play. He prevented any chance of Della Valle passing the ball to him, by overplaying him, then he did the same on the potential Cinciarini’s pass. But when Scola shoots, Lauvergne is still busy at preventing the Cinciarini-Tarczewski pass. Kaleb realizes this and uses his position to box out the French center. He pushes him back, gains the space for the potential offensive rebound. When Scola’s shot does not go in, Tarczewski is in the ideal position to jump and dunk on the fly. One Day, One Play!
