Stats review: A look at the teams that start games hottest

Some teams stand out from the rest in their ability to start games on fire, whether offensively or defensively.

EA7 Emporio Armani Milan notched perhaps the most impressive victory of Round 14 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague by knocking off FC Barcelona in Palau Blaugrana without two of its top three scorers. With Maodo Lo and Nikola Mirotic both sidelined, this was a surprise result for Coach Ettore Messina’s team which built a quick lead and never looked back as they controlled the action throughout.

Despite their spot in the standings at the moment, the prior has been the norm this season for Milan; it thrives early. As the table above suggests, no team has gotten off to faster starts offensively than Milan has through the first third of the season and its 9-point lead over second-place Barcelona mid-way through the first quarter this week certainly reflected that. In fact, it even seemed to stun the hosts, the lone team that has been as dominant as consistently as Milan out of the blocks game-to-game.

Shields set the tone in Barcelona

Scoring 19 points over the first 11 possessions, Milan has Shavon Shields to thank for its red-hot start in this instance. Starting the game shooting 4-for-4 from beyond the arc and finishing the first 5 minutes with 16 points over eight possessions, Shields went supernova to set the tone early putting together one of the most efficient individual shot-making stretches in EuroLeague history. While he was the hero this time, Milan has gotten off to strong starts regularly over the season’s first few months with a variety of players contributing to its success; Mirotic had scored 37 points over 28 early game possessions to start the season and the rest of the roster aside from that duo has shot 16-for-27 from beyond the arc. The difference for Milan in this game was the finish. It held the lead it built to start the game over the rest of the game despite the absence of two of its most talented offensive weapons.

Among the other teams that have started games well, Zalgiris Kaunas has hung its hat on the ability to get stops early in games while the other teams listed here all find themselves in the thick of the playoff hunt in the early going.

The hottest players early in games

Among players, Jan Vesely and Marco Belinelli have been this season’s most prolific early-game scorers while Walter Tavares and Joffrey Lauvergne have not lagged far behind thanks to some truly staggering efficiency numbers.

The question moving forward for Milan and Zalgiris is whether they can begin to translate what they show out of the gates over the final 35 minutes more consistently than they have to this point. Round 14 provided a glimpse of what that might look like against one of this season’s top units. Milan's execution has been top-notch over a stretch that tends to see many clubs start out a bit colder than usual. The first 5 minutes of games tend to be the most scripted as teams have had days to prepare for those moments and Milan has built a +28 scoring margin in that segment of games. That would rank sixth in the EuroLeague for the entire season. That’s remarkable in a league that has a surplus of parity round-to-round and perhaps speaks to the veteran club’s potential.