Moving soon… to Sixers4guidos 2.0 !!

If someone ever wondered why I haven’t written an update in over than a month, answers are:

1) a shitload of work

2) my home computer decided to die and I still have to buy a new one

3) I am working at building Sixers4guidos 2.0.

The new site (new network, new domain, new graphics, new features etc) will be up …well, soon, I hope. I won’t say any precise deadline because I already missed like 2-3, but it will be… uhm, surely before the first tip off of 2009-2010, ok ???

BTW the latest deadline I scheduled, and missed, was today, the day of the opener of Eurobasket 2009 in Poland. But you can follow my updates about the games on Twitter4guidos:

http://twitter.com/sixers4guidos/

Let’s meet there ! I will be rooting for my beloved Serbia, that shocked favored Spain in the first upset of the competition.

Thanks for your patience, it will be rewarded !!

Boki Nachbar remembers Sammy D…

In a pretty quiet period with (no) real Sixers-related news, Hoopshype made this nice interview with former Net Bostjan Nachbar.

Why I post it here?

First because I have to prove I am alive, second because it’s an interesting read, especially in terms of understanding the economic situation of int’l bball and reminding the differences between european and NBA hoops, third because there is a fun Sixers reference at the end, as you will check.

Since the quality of the video from Hoopshype is not very good, I found another video of the same play, that you might ‘enjoy’:

So much for the “intimidating presence”.

Sam got shawnbradleylized there…

UPDATE: since we are in a You Tube mood, enjoy also this great Dr. J – George Gervin video, via Twitter4guidos – FreeDarko:

(NOTE: I will be working at my new site in the next days, I hope I will be able to launch Sixers4guidos 2.0 soon, let’s say within the end of the month. Stay tuned, it’s gonna be a great, brand new blog)

What I missed during vacation

Here we are, blogging again after a well deserved 9 day vacation in the beatiful island of Zanzibar (Africa).

So what did I miss in the meantime? In chronological order:

1) Iguodala was officially signed to a 6 year-80 million extention (the pic shows that both him and Stefanski were happy for the deal…)

2) Sixers brought back Theo Ratliff, signed to a 1 year contract for the veteran minimum

3) Sixers’ GM Ed Stefanski made a conference call with a panel of selected bloggers.

Brian/Depressed fan has the links to all posts of other sites, Sixers.com has the transcript of the conference, Recliner GM has the podcast.

I had the privilege to get the invitation to the conference from Micheal Preston, Sixers’ PR director (thanks again), but unfortunately couldn’t join it because I was out. I will surely be part of the next one, scheduled… well, they don’t know yet, but it will be before the season starts.

Anyway it’s great to see that Sixers keep us bloggers/fans in such high consideration, and that a GM takes some of his time to talk directly to us. This is something new in the NBA, as far as I know, and hopefully it becomes a trend and eventually a standard for every team. Hats off to Stefanski and the Sixers’ public relations dept for setting up this.

4) Sixers brought back Jeff Ruland also, this time as an assistant coach

5) USA Team won the gold medal at the Olympics in China, beating Spain after a fantastic game. 

My quick takes on the aforementioned subjects are:

Russia the unlikely champ of Eurobasket 2007

Unlikely and for several reasons.

Russians came to Spain with no other ambition than getting a pass for the 2008 Olympics. They were facing the hosts in the final, a team that everyone picked as final winner and that a whole country was ready to carry to the victory, after five silver medals in the previous competitions (make it six, now…).

It’s not over. Russia gave up 17 offensive rebounds. Russia was down five (59-54) with 1.30 to go.

BUT…

Euro 2007 will be remembered for the many close games, crazy comebacks and buzzer beaters and in the final game we had them all. To spice things up even more, the hero of the game was the most unlikely one.

Greeks have basket..balls

For sure.

This slogan is written in many t-shirts and banners that greek fans wear and take to the  arenas when their national team plays.

Well, they just show it’s not only some marketing trick, as I watched one of the most unbelievable comebacks ever seen in these competitions, that ended with Greece’s 63-62 win over Slovenia.

The end reminded me of another historic resurrection (or collapse, depending from your standpoint) in the fourth quarter: the 17 points lead squandered by Blazers vs Lakers in game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals.

Because the game was completely in Slovenia’s hands with a comfortable 16 points lead with 6.49 to go, 42-58. Yes, Greece scored 42 points in more than 33 minutes (jeez… gotta love FIBA basketball), and with the two offenses so cold, it seemed more than closed at that time.

Well, you do the maths: in the last 6.49 minutes Greece outscored Slovenia 21-4, scoring half the points they managed to put in the previous 33.

Even harder to believe, the score was 49-61 with 2.30 to go, meaning the game ended with a 14-1 Greece run in 150 seconds !!!!!!!!!

Italy loses game and 2008 Olympics

Maybe someone is waiting for my recap of today’s game.

Well, the truth is I didn’t watch it. The game started at 4.30 PM european time and I was out for a job meeting that ended at 8…

Seems the (devastating, by the way) meeting saved me nearly two hours of real pain: how could I have described a 58-67 loss vs an average opponent like Germany?

Dirk’s smile (!!) is perhaps the funniest thing in this sad afternoon for guidos hoops fans.

The boxscore is also clear enough: when you shoot 13/33 from 2 pt, 5/23 from 3 pt and the other team grabs 52 rebounds vs yours 31 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) every further comment should be useless.

I made a little research and found also these info, just to make the picture complete:

If you don’t like Euro 2007…

…you don’t like basketball.

And I’m not talking about NBA basketball, but hoops in general.

The list of the amazing finishes increased last night, with Vassilis Spanoulis beating Croatia with a long (very long…) three before time expired. I’ll try to post the link later. So after Lakovic (Slovenia, vs Italy) and Gurovic (Serbia, vs Greece) we watched another exciting, tough basket at the buzzer.

But the excitiment continues, and this time Italy was a part of it. Yes, because here I am telling you the story of a nice, OT, comeback 84-75 win vs Turkey. Follow my recap, it’s fun.

1st quarter. It ended with Turkey up 14 (15-29), a score that actually was 10-25 (largest lead), with a 14-3 turkish edge under the boards !! Need more? Belinelli started with 0/3, Turkey scored twice just before the shot clock expired, once on a fallaway three, Italy shot 5/16, Turkey 9/14. Clear enough?

Ok, you got the picture. Mehmet Okur and mostly Hidayet Turkoglu started doing their job, scoring whenever they wanted, and Peker did the rest. Italy was… well, I don’t know. Zero ideas, no offensive game, ghosts walking under the boards. Terrific start.

Good, but not enough

Italy’s second round at the Eurobasketball 2007 in Spain started with another defeat (wow !).

Ok, a 74-79 loss vs Lithuania is somehow honourable, since everybody picked Lithuania at least as semifinal bound before the competition. I say: yes, it is, but we could have won this game.

While it’s not suprising that we were simply overwhelmed under the boards (44-29), with guard Siskauskas (6 rebounds), Nuggets forward Linas Kleiza (9) and Ksistof Lavrinovic (5) whipping our centers (?), it’s disappointing that we forgot to run plays for Belinelli and Bargnani down the stretch, when they were hot and could have given us a chance to win the game.

Golden State Warriors’ rookie scored 9 consecutive points in the fourth quarter only to be forgotten in the last minutes, while Bargnani had another solid game (15 + 7, leading us in both categories) but wasn’t feeded enough at the end, when Italy collected silly turnovers and missed shots. So we couldn’t cut the 74-77 deficit with 50” to go.

Italy goes to Madrid, Serbia home

Mixed feelings at the end of this final day of the first round.

As largely predicted, Italy beat Poland, even if our win (79-70) was tougher than excpected. Azzurri were in control basically for the whole game, with margins between 14 and 5 points. The key factors for this win were two: shooting percentages and controllling the boards.

I mean, it’s pretty difficult to lose when you 1) shoot 12/21 from three point land and 2) outrebound the other team 34-26.

My deep knowledge of the game is displayed by these smart comments:

Parker better than us down the stretch

Better game, bitter end. Same taste like last night.

Maybe I should just guve a cut to the “Mr. Longoria” jokes and simply say that Tony Parker is a fantastic basketball player.

He almost singlehandedly beat us in the second game of the Eurobasktball 2007 played in Alicante, a 62-69 loss to France. 

What can you say when a player ends with 36 points, more than 50% of his whole team? He started scoring France’s first 9 points and 13 of the first 17, answering Andrea Bargnani’s excellent start. 

Parker reached 27 after three quarters, when France’s total was 51, and carried the Blues in the last minutes.

After Bargnani’s three pointer put Italy ahead at 60-57 with 4 minutes to go, the Spurs PG ignited a 10-0 break that basically closed the game, nailing a tough trey just before the shot clock expired to tie Andrea’s shot and scoring on another two drives to make it 60-67. Boris Diaw then sealed the game blocking Belinelli’s (soft) layup attempt.

The game was pretty enjoyable, if you love close, hard fought, tactical battles. Your typical FIBA basketball, to sum it up.