I FEEL GOOD - Scouting notes SCKA Moscow – Lokomotive Kuban
Scouting notes SCKA Moscow – Lokomotive Kuban
-The song is about Nando De Colo or he is the singer himself. ( I Feeeel good…..)
What to say: One team found its game, the other didn’t.
Loko looked nervous all the way and didn’t offer anything surprising to CSKA.
Though both teams had 5 losses during the first quarter they all looked different. After 7-0 run Loko used Draper with Euroleague experience to restore the team mood. He stepped in and help to gain important confidence and starting points to involve his team into the battle.
Long distance bombarding
CSKA had no situations to many shoot 3 points in the 1st quarter, but when Loko last perimeter defense focus 4 CSKA people succeeded in Long range tries ( DeColo, Teodosic, Vorontsevich, Khryapa). Some minutes later Fridzon joined this sniper company. SCKA made 11 3pointers out of 23 attempts comparing to 10 out of 31 by Loko.
SCKA Lost rebounds 27 to 35 but that didn’t help much for Kuban to have the chance to win the game.
They lost it in the first quarter.
Loko flashed in the second quarter with quick ball sharing, crossing moves and good inside pressure. That didn’t last too long as it should be supported by points. They missed too much - 11 baskets out of 29 2FG. Draper being solid competitor deserved more minutes.
In addition to this I didn’t notice organized half-court offense by Loko or tempo acceleration try. Individually they showed some talent again. Not enough for the game like that. Even 24 points by Delaney and 23 by Randolph were not enough. Their Defense system was broken, stopped, not able to fix itself or improve during the game time.
The Picture By Tatyana Makeeva CSKA
Dimitris Itoudis had space and time to use variants and improvise with the squad even used zone defense before the end of the first half.
CSKA managed to tune and turn on their captain in time. Victor Khryapa couldn’t miss a single shot finishing with 9 points. Maybe you can’t mention anything profitable of his 20 minutes on court but those were the things not reported in the boxscore.
There was one man from some other planet. His name was Nando De Colo. I could hardly recognize him again. Looks like he landed from the sky for some time to play the ball. He was 10 years younger, ten times faster, more than confident.
He fired stepping back, escape into the back door, penetrated inside executing 4 assist and 1 steal.
His game was a level higher, just higher than anyone else on court. I’m not sure he would like to come back to NBA. Too much of a risk… And I don’t think this can be the step up in his career.
The Picture By Tatyana Makeeva CSKA
The picture used in the preview made by Denis Tyrin Championat.com
