Maccabi Tel Aviv will try to close the first round of the Euroleague tonight (Tuesday, 21:05) with a third consecutive victory, something that did not happen during the entire round. The task will be difficult due to the apparent lack of Othello Hunter, and it will be even more challenging given the bad period when Hunter’s front-line partner, Ante Žižić, is in the last six games issuing particularly low statistics, The pitch.
- 21:05 on SPORT5: Maccabi Tel Aviv against Zenit
Zizic, or “Ziza” as he is called in the locker room, arrived at Maccabi in the summer with a standing ovation. According to reports in Europe, the Croatian was already closed at Real Madrid, but throughout the period he kept in touch with Nikola Vujicic, who finally managed to complete the move. After a not-so-bad season opener, the chin has been struggling for the past month and a half to show the ability, while the rest of his front-line teammates, Hunter and Dragon Bender, are enjoying a good period and are actually covering up for his weakness.
Skydiving in every parameter
Time to dive into numbers. There is the Žižić of the first ten rounds of the Euroleague, and there is that of the last six games. A significant and profound difference can be seen, in every parameter, in the output that Žižić gives during these periods. Let’s start with the basics of everything – the minutes of the game. In the first ten rounds Zizic spent 23 minutes on the floor, and in the last six – only 15. And here it is an egg and a chicken: Does Zizic get less minutes because he is not good, is he not good because he gets less minutes ? Worth a thought.
At the points, a drop from 10.7 to 3.3 can be detected. The shooting percentage for 2 has dipped from 60% to only 35%. In the last 6 rounds, Žižić picks up half of the amount of the rebound, and shows a particularly poor finish ability in pick-and-roll, with only 20% success compared to 67%. But above all, too many Maccabi passers-by, Žižić seems less active, less aggressive, less alive in the game.
On the other side of the pitch we knew the Croatian chin was experiencing his problems, especially when it came to keeping guards as a result of defending Yannis Sapropoulos’ substitution defense. The Greek coach has previously admitted that in the deciding minutes he prefers Hunter on the pitch because Žižić is having a hard time defending. So if the opening figures were not good anyway, then in the last six games Zizic has hardly blocked, compared to one block per game before.
But note the following figure. If we talked about Žižić’s difficulty in keeping guards or agile players from him, now it turns out that the difficulty is much more acute: in the last six games, every time the opposing player took the Croatian chin of Maccabi Tel Aviv with his back to the basket – it ended In points. In 100% of cases. This is compared to only 45% in his good times. This statistic, more than any other, tells the story of a self-assured crash that has recently crashed, and like his Dragon Bender teammate, Žižić longs for this one game that will get him out of the pit.
The style just does not suit him
The question arises, what does Maccabi as a team, and what Yannis Sapropoulos as a coach, do to help Zizic get out of the bad times. On the mental level, we know how to tell about quite a few conversations that “Ziza” has had in recent weeks with Nikola Vujicic and also with Sapropoulos himself, and Maccabi is under the impression that the problem is not mental.
Professionally, no doubt no effort was made to help Zizic more, especially on defense. For example, Sapropolos continues to stick in his way and does not add the regional defense to the arsenal of defensive tools that can suit a player of the Žižić type. Regional defense, for example, can resolve the issue of automatic substitutions and placing Zizic in front of a much more agile guard, and can also make it difficult for Bigmans to take a comfortable position with their backs to the basket.
Sapropoulos says, and rightly so, that if there is no perfect coordination in regional defense, the opponent can punish with a flood of threes, and he does not want to take that risk. But the opportunity to put in that defense should have occurred as early as the season, when Sapropoulos knew and saw the problems of his new chin, and had to look weeks and months ahead to realize he would have to find another solution to hide those problems – a solution not yet invented.
Maccabi’s attack does not really highlight Zizic’s abilities either. Maccabi is in last place in the Euroleague when it comes to the use of post-match modes – Zizic’s main weapon – with only 5% of the overall points share. In only 6% of cases, Maccabi receives points from the player who rolls in at Picknroll. On the other hand, Maccabi is one of the leaders in the Euroleague in bursting points, with 13% of the points analyzer, and in isolation exercises, with 12% of the total points, and at the end of the guard in pick-and-roll, with 19%. This means that in 34% of the ways that Maccabi knows how to produce points – Zizic can not be expressed, except to be the one who provides the block to the guard who penetrates all the way to the basket, or from time to time to be the one to finish bursting – which happened only twice this season .
