Kings at Eurobasket 2015

#1
We have a decent amount of Kings at Eurobasket. Casspi (ISR), belinelli (ITA) and Koufos (GRE). All teams have a good chance at making it to the Round of 16 and greece and perhaps even Italy can make a deep run in this tournament.

Day 1:

Casspi - 21 pts, 9 reb, 3 ast in WIN (76-73 vs. Russia)

Koufos - 11 pts, 11 reb in WIN (85-65 vs. Macedonia)

Belinelli - plays soon vs. Turkey
 
#11
Watching Greece vs Croatia. Very good game. Koufos and Giannis have been limited minutes wise(dont know if NBA teams are making those kind of requests). Greece is a very good team though, the vet Spannoulis is so crafty.
 
#12
Watching Greece vs Croatia. Very good game. Koufos and Giannis have been limited minutes wise(dont know if NBA teams are making those kind of requests). Greece is a very good team though, the vet Spannoulis is so crafty.
I don't know if they are being limited by NBA teams but Greece has a lot of depth in their bench therefore they can allow themselves to let Giannis and Koufos to rest a little bit.
 
#13
Right now I'm worried for Belinelli. If he plays with this attitude we're in trouble (we as Kings fans).
I'm not. With our national team he is one of the stars, and he has to play that role. With the Kings he will be required to be a role player, and that's exactly what he does well. Now he has the ball in his hands too much, he's required to make plays for himself and for others, because we don't have a real point guard (Cinciarini and Hackett are jokes). On the Kings he will have to do what he does best: stay out of the way and hit the open shots. And he can do that.

Italy is also sucking both on defense and offense right now, so it's obvious Beli is not having great games.
 
#15
Yes, Italy is very poor aside from Gallinari and Bellinelli, very bad defensively.
It has been like this for Italy since the Eurobasket of 2011 if I am not mistaken, I remember them losing to our national team (Israel) in the score of 96-95 while our national team was missing Omri Casspi at that time due to an injury I believe, Belinelli and Gallinari are really the only active players who actually play, their defense is not strong, no doubt about it, but one thing I was able to comprehend everytime I watched Italy play is the Bargnani never shows up to their game, he is always very weak, takes bad shots and etc.
Unfortunately for them there was a reason they lost to Turkey.
 
#16
It has been like this for Italy since the Eurobasket of 2011 if I am not mistaken, I remember them losing to our national team (Israel) in the score of 96-95 while our national team was missing Omri Casspi at that time due to an injury I believe, Belinelli and Gallinari are really the only active players who actually play, their defense is not strong, no doubt about it, but one thing I was able to comprehend everytime I watched Italy play is the Bargnani never shows up to their game, he is always very weak, takes bad shots and etc.
Unfortunately for them there was a reason they lost to Turkey.
Datome and Gentile are very good at the European level. Aradori, Melli and Polonara have the talent to compete as well. Italy's problem is not, at least on offense, lack of individual talent bat rather lack of team play on offense. Everybody's standing around and even if they move the playcalling and the general approach are atrocious; in the last game Italy played 5 out most of the time against the shortest team in the competition. Nobody rolled on the pick'n'rolls, the only guy who actively tried to exploit mismatches was Datome. Belinelli tried to play as a roleplayer and hasn't been really effective due to the fact that he was trying to do it within a broken system. That approach is going to be fine in the NBA but in Eurobasket he should take more responsibilites off the dribble.

With these players, defense is never going to be stellar but the offense we've seen yesterday has been inexcusable.
 
#21
It has been like this for Italy since the Eurobasket of 2011 if I am not mistaken.
They have been like that since they won the silver at the 2004 Olympics. Since then they have been really bad. In 2009 they even missed the Eurobasket, the first since 1961. I had high(er) hopes for them this year (especially with the way Belinelli and Galinari have been playing the laste few years), but after watching that last possession against Turkey, I don't think they can achieve anything. Unfortunately, I had to miss todays game against Spain. (Greek here btw)
 
#22
that was pretty amazing. not just that he couldn't miss from three, but also that he kept pump-faking, cutting, finding other players. just an absolutely excellent half. Gallinari kept the Italians in the game and heavily contributed to them putting Spain away in the end, so the match ball should probably go to him, but Bellinelli catching fire was brilliant to look at.
 
#23
They have been like that since they won the silver at the 2004 Olympics. Since then they have been really bad. In 2009 they even missed the Eurobasket, the first since 1961. I had high(er) hopes for them this year (especially with the way Belinelli and Galinari have been playing the laste few years), but after watching that last possession against Turkey, I don't think they can achieve anything. Unfortunately, I had to miss todays game against Spain. (Greek here btw)
I have been following Italy only since the Eurobasket of 2011 where they faced Israel, they have some great individual talent, but their problem is that they can't find a way for the team to connect and really translate all their talents to high scores and wins, today they really showed how the Italian national team can and should play, all of their big three (Bargnani, Belinelli and Gallinari) were scoring really well, and by playing together and distributing the ball and convert open shots, they were able to beat the "mighty" Spanish national team.

Too be quite honest, I could care less about the Italian national basketball team since I am rooting for the Israeli national basketball team, and I was really disappointed by the utter abhorrent conduct of the players on the court, fouling too early on the last seconds, and then not smart enough to defend a game deciding three-point shot, unfortunately, loses like this can happen, I just hope our national team will look better tomorrow against Poland and I hope Casspi will be shining like he currently is in this tournament thus far.
 
#27
Italy vs. Germany

Belinelli ends up going 1/2 from 2pt and 4/14 from 3pt for 17pts.


He struggled throughout the entire game on both ends, but he made a huge bucket at the end of the game to seal an Italy win