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Nov 1, 2010, 10:04 pm
Pocius should be ready for the game against Asseco Prokom and probably Jankunas too as there were no news about his injury. I might have missed something since I wasn't online for the last couple of days.
The curious issue to me is the injury of Marcus Brown. Or to rephrase that sentence - whether he is really injured or is the club covering his extremely poor physical shape. Although this is just a theory but I wouldn't be surprised to know that it is true having seen Brown play in the first LKL games.
Overall image of Zalgiris isn't too good. First of all, I had a feeling that Petrovic is not the right coach for this team once the roster was completed. Petrovic prefers defensive basketball that's what most Serbian coaches do. And that's totally fine. It was proven many times that they (Serbian coaches) can be very successful. The problem I see here is that the players are of different mentality. They are really dangerous in a fast paced game. Since there are so many players on the roster who can substitute each other equally, the coach should force them to play intensely and wear the opponents down. They should play intense basketball in defense and in offense. That's what we saw in Lithuanian NT in Turkey.
Yet what we see is rather slow game. To me most of the shots that are taken appear to be random instead of coming from set plays. The passing is slow in most cases. That often leads to stupid turnovers as the opponents can easily intercept the pass. Some players really don't look themselves because of such offence.
The defense is questionable too. The players of the opposing team find ways to score rather easily. Such defense was the most surprising thing to me since I thought that Petrovic will at least force this team to play hard in defense.
Because of the reasons that I mentioned above, the team, even when it wins, wins harder than it should or than it could. It looks like the players are not using their potential. The first thing I remember is Lithuanian NT under Butautas. No, not the team of 2009. I am talking about the team in 2007 and 2008 when even though it had overall good results, but it played not the way it should have played. Some games could have been easy wins but due to the tactical decisions of the coach those wins were much harder. However, there were some big names in NT who sometimes played the way they wanted and not the way they were told to play by the coach.
The decision to sing Collins was a mistake and I stand by that. The only thing I don't understand why Petrovic is keeping him on the court when is making turnover after turnover in the key moments of the game when there are two point guards on the bench waiting for their chance. Especially since Collins seems not to give a f*** about what he does on the court.
One thing is clear that Petrovic won't change his philosophy. It is also clear that his style doesn't fit the team. At least it doesn't so far. This team has the potential to go far this season and it would be a shame if they fail to reach that potential.
Btw, did you know that Zalgiris won only 3 away games out of 31 away games played in the last 3 years in Euroleague. That's a shameful stat. It's one thing that always makes me mad when I think about Zalgiris. Of course in this case there were objective reasons for at least part of such performance but it became a trend. What we saw last week in Tel Aviv was a continuation of this "tradition" and I really thought they could fight for the win.
I think that Petrovic wasn't the best choice for Zalgiris.
The curious issue to me is the injury of Marcus Brown. Or to rephrase that sentence - whether he is really injured or is the club covering his extremely poor physical shape. Although this is just a theory but I wouldn't be surprised to know that it is true having seen Brown play in the first LKL games.
Overall image of Zalgiris isn't too good. First of all, I had a feeling that Petrovic is not the right coach for this team once the roster was completed. Petrovic prefers defensive basketball that's what most Serbian coaches do. And that's totally fine. It was proven many times that they (Serbian coaches) can be very successful. The problem I see here is that the players are of different mentality. They are really dangerous in a fast paced game. Since there are so many players on the roster who can substitute each other equally, the coach should force them to play intensely and wear the opponents down. They should play intense basketball in defense and in offense. That's what we saw in Lithuanian NT in Turkey.
Yet what we see is rather slow game. To me most of the shots that are taken appear to be random instead of coming from set plays. The passing is slow in most cases. That often leads to stupid turnovers as the opponents can easily intercept the pass. Some players really don't look themselves because of such offence.
The defense is questionable too. The players of the opposing team find ways to score rather easily. Such defense was the most surprising thing to me since I thought that Petrovic will at least force this team to play hard in defense.
Because of the reasons that I mentioned above, the team, even when it wins, wins harder than it should or than it could. It looks like the players are not using their potential. The first thing I remember is Lithuanian NT under Butautas. No, not the team of 2009. I am talking about the team in 2007 and 2008 when even though it had overall good results, but it played not the way it should have played. Some games could have been easy wins but due to the tactical decisions of the coach those wins were much harder. However, there were some big names in NT who sometimes played the way they wanted and not the way they were told to play by the coach.
The decision to sing Collins was a mistake and I stand by that. The only thing I don't understand why Petrovic is keeping him on the court when is making turnover after turnover in the key moments of the game when there are two point guards on the bench waiting for their chance. Especially since Collins seems not to give a f*** about what he does on the court.
One thing is clear that Petrovic won't change his philosophy. It is also clear that his style doesn't fit the team. At least it doesn't so far. This team has the potential to go far this season and it would be a shame if they fail to reach that potential.
Btw, did you know that Zalgiris won only 3 away games out of 31 away games played in the last 3 years in Euroleague. That's a shameful stat. It's one thing that always makes me mad when I think about Zalgiris. Of course in this case there were objective reasons for at least part of such performance but it became a trend. What we saw last week in Tel Aviv was a continuation of this "tradition" and I really thought they could fight for the win.
I think that Petrovic wasn't the best choice for Zalgiris.