Euros Blog: A Germany-Poland Nailbiter, and Turkey's Tournament is Cut Short
A relatively uneventful day is rescued by the we're-better-at-making-sausages showdown.
Every day throughout the European Championships 2021, we will be bringing you our most validated-by-nobody takes on the day’s action. People seem to enjoy reading it, and writing it is a laugh. What more justification could we possibly need?
Before we get started, please hit a couple of these buttons and help raise the profile of our coverage:
Germany 55 - 34 Spain (Women)
Mark’s Prediction: Germany by 20
James’s Prediction: Germany by 26
If I were looking to uphold this blog’s reputation of surgically scientific and precise basketball insights, I would observe that the difference in this game was that Katharina Lang hails from Germany and not Spain. If her name had been Catarina Largo, this one might have been a completely different outcome.
Even when Germany only finished the first half ahead 23-18, it never really felt like Spain were a threat in this one. Germany promptly confirmed that hypothesis by winning the second quarter 18-6. When you’re as offensively challenged as the Spanish are - led by 10 points from Beatriz Zudaire - chances are that you’ll have a tough time turning around a 17-point deficit over any stretch of game-time, let alone the final 10 minutes.
Lang lead Germany with 22 points, 18 rebounds and 9 assists. That’ll do fine.
Netherlands 63 - 41 (Men)
Mark’s Prediction: Netherlands by 15
James’s Prediction: Netherlands by 12
This was a weird one. The Netherlands won by more than either James or I predicted, and yet it didn’t seem all that convincing because of how bad Israel looked.
This was not a fun watch by any stretch of the imagination, but Netherlands got it done on the back of speed, mobility, and being able to play more than two good players at any one time.
The Dutch got balanced scoring, with 6 players logging between 7 and 12 points. They also executed a solid game plan defensively, denying Israel’s bigs any looks and forcing the offense to run through Rada Dagamin (14 points). Israel’s combination of forwards and scoring threats (Dor Onn, Shabo and Vigoda) combined for only 7 of 18 shooting.
Offensively, it still feels like the Dutch have at least one more gear to hit.
Spain 86 - 48 Lithuania (Men)
Mark’s Prediction: Spain by 46
James’s Prediction: Spain by 39
Asier Garcia played 0 minutes. Jordi Ruiz shot 1/7. Spain has an established level of class that means that anomalies like that don’t tend to manifest against an opponent like Lithuania.
That much was apparent when Spain were up 26-4 after 10 minutes. Lithuania played them to near-enough a draw over the middle two quarters of the game, but then the closing 21-8 run pushed Spain to within a single point of James nailing this prediction.
Pincho Ortega was at it again, scoring 15 to lead Spain along with Agustín Alejos. David Mouriz also put up a triple-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds (part of a +18 Spanish rebounding advantage) and 10 assists.
Lithuania couldn’t hang, even with my own personal cult hero, Martynas Jarusevicius, clunkily putting up 13 points in that chair that looks like he’s trying to manoeuvre a cruise ship. Seriously, go and watch this guy play. He has a built-in screen on the front of his chair and still only shot 33%. There’s no helping some people.
France 28 - 81 Netherlands (Women)
Mark: Netherlands by the bit from Space Jam where the scoreboard reads “Kinda one-sided, isn’t it?”
James: Netherlands by 76
I’ll defend my take by saying that, had the Netherlands been feeling sadistic, they could have won this one by a couple of orders of magnitude more than they did. I’m also curious to know whether James’s call of 76 is closer to the real difference of 53 or whatever number would have met my criteria.
Netherlands got 45 combined from Kramer and Beijer (in only 46 combined minutes), and nobody Dutch played more than 25 minutes as they rotated their entire squad.
France struggled.
Turkey 12 - 78 Great Britain (Women)
Mark’s Prediction: GB by 78
James’s Prediction: GB by 76
We went over this yesterday; if you want me to write these takes, it’s going to take a game that has something to discuss. Please don’t use that caveat as an excuse to point out that you never asked me to write these takes.
I’m not making an exception here because it’s GB that won by an absurd margin. Consider this non-write-up as my protest against imbalanced basketball games.
Turkey 0 - 20 Italy (Men)
Mark’s Prediction: Italy by 4
James’s Prediction: Italy by 9
For anyone who hasn’t heard, the Turkish men have been ruled out of the European Championships due to some confirmed COVID-19 cases. They will forfeit the rest of their games and finish in 12th place. Hopefully, everybody within their squad is safe and sound. Basketball games aren’t that important in the grand scheme.
Me and James both called Italy to win this one, and will be calling every opponent that Turkey would have faced to win that game by the default 20-0. It’ll make us look like geniuses.
Germany 72 - 70 Poland (Men)
Mark’s Prediction: Poland by 6
James’s Prediction: Germany by 16
So, James predicted a Germany win, but was 14 off on the margin of victory. I called a Poland win, but was only 8 away on the differential. I don’t really know who wins that one. Apart from Germany, by 2.
In other news: what a game this was. I mean, damn, this game was so compelling that I deliberately didn’t write about either of the two immediately above this entry.
Poland looked spicy to start the game, beating Germany up and down the floor and getting out to an early lead on the back of their trademark clinical finishing.
Germany didn’t click for the first 5 minutes, with Alex Halouski missing shots all over the place. With the big fella misfiring, Tommy Boehme took the reins and converted some huge shots to keep Germany within reach, ending the quarter and the half trailing by 3.
It stayed neck-and-neck throughout the entire third quarter, with Germany closing in by just one point on the back of some hot shooting from captain Jan Haller. Poland went into the final frame leading by 2, and even lead by 3 with just over a minute left. At that point, Boehme splashed a 3-pointer and Jens Albrecht followed up with another 2 around 40 seconds later.
Mateusz Filipski got a decent look up in the dying seconds, but it didn’t go. Poland were running on fumes at this point, with four of their five starters having been on the floor for every second of the game.
In terms of scoring threats, Germany’s trio of Boehme (30 pts), Haller (23) and Halouski (10) were enough to edge out Poland’s bucket getting Cerberus of Filipski (22 pts), Bandura (21) and Mosler (19). Margins are tight in games like this, and Germany’s depth was still only able to muster one more point than a quiet game from Andrzej Macek (6 points on 3/8 shooting).
Wow.
Great Britain 99 - 51 Austria (Men)
Mark: GB by 53
James: GB by 58
Well, did our predictions ever look overly optimistic when this was an 8-point GB lead, following an end-of-quarter buzzer beater, at half-time.
I’d been watching the conclusion of what I (justifiably) assumed would be a much more exciting game between Germany and Poland, so I was a bit bemused to see Austria putting up this much of a fight, and couldn’t work out how we had gotten to this point.
There’s a good chance I’ll never know, because there is absolutely no statistical way in which GB’s second-half performance was anything however they got to the half-time score. This game very quickly turned into a laugher, culminating in a 36-6 final quarter in GB’s favour. Youch.
James assured me that Austria were only in it because they shot disproportionately well for the whole second quarter (they won the period 23-19) and that this scoreline could have gotten truly out of control if it hadn’t been for that 10-minute aberation.
All told, GB finished with 7 players scoring in double figures - with both Phil Pratt and Ben Fox not playing in this game due to personal reasons - and shot 54% while having a shot-attempts advantage of +25. That’ll get it done.
France 66 - 48 Switzerland (Men)
Mark: France by 19
James: France by 24
Turns out that all France needed was to not open the tournament playing Spain and Germany.
You could argue that they still don’t know which lineups to put out, as their Bench Units(TM) outscored their starters 49-17 (!). Nico Jouanserre and Luigi Makambo combined for 34 points on 25 shots, while Sofyane Mehiaoui came off the bench to lead the team in both assists (9) and steals (7).
I genuinely don’t know what lineup France will turn to when it comes to crunch time, and that leaves me feeling a bit unsettled, but they’ve proven they have enough guys to get it done, even if Switzerland aren’t the stoutest of opposition.
Switzerland got double-figures from Amacher, Binda and Hausamann, who is approximately 534 years old. They don’t have much to work with, but I’d say they can probably beat Turkey by roughly 19.
Up Tomorrow…
Sticking with the old Bench Units gimmick that we’ve used since 2018, We’re going to list out tomorrow’s schedule and our predictions for the results, based on almost nothing at all.
All game times are in Central European Time:
10:00am - Turkey vs Israel (Men - Turkey Forfeit)
Mark: Israel by 19
James: Israel by 21
11:00am - Germany vs Switzerland (Men)
Mark: Germany by 32
James: Germany by 31
12:15pm - Netherlands vs Great Britain (Women)
Mark: Netherlands by 23
James: Netherlands by 23
1:15pm - Lithuania vs France (Men)
Mark: France by 34
James: France by 25
2:30pm - Spain vs France (Women)
Mark: Spain by 18
James: Spain by 21
3:30pm - Germany vs Turkey (Women)
Mark: Germany by 39
James: Germany by 48
4:45pm - Austria vs Netherlands (Men)
Mark: Netherlands by just few enough to leave me concerned for Mendel
James: Netherlands by 14
5:45pm - Poland vs Spain (Men)
Mark: Poland by 3
James: Spain by 6
7:00pm - Italy vs Great Britain (Men)
Mark: GB by 17
James: GB by 22
That will be all for today. If you didn’t do it earlier in the article, please click at least one of these and allow me to feel validated: