The eight teams entering the best-of-five Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Playoff series will look to lean on their strengths, some of which lie in the numbers.
The playoff teams’ strengths, by the numbers
Real Madrid's stifling defense
In addition to all of its offensive numbers, defending champion Real Madrid leads the league in two major defensive statistical categories, two-point and three-point percentages allowed. Real has held opponents to a league-low 50.8% shooting on two-pointers and Los Blancos have also allowed a mere 33.5% on three-point shooters. In the current round-robin EuroLeague format, this has only been done once before, by Barcelona in the 2020-21 season.
What is really interesting is that Real has faced the second most two-point shot attempts and the third fewest triples. No team has seen its opponents attempt more two-pointers than Real, 43.2 per game, with Fenerbahce being second in that department quite below at 40.2. But opponents have made just over half of those attempts against Real, as a result of the intimidating factors in the paint named Walter Tavares and Vincent Poirier. They are the two best shot-blockers in the league, with Poirer ranking first (1.5 bpg.) and Tavares, who is the EuroLeague all-time leader in blocks, second this season (1.4 bpg.).
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This season there are five teams averaging at least 19 assists per game and they all made the playoffs. Eight teams have averaged better than 18.0 assists this season and six will be competing in the playoffs. That's the first time ever. They are Real (20.5 apg.), Maccabi (19.7 apg.), Barcelona (19.4 apg.), Olympiacos (19.3 apg.), Baskonia (19.0 apg.) and Fenerbahce (18.1 apg.). There have never been more than four such playoff teams in the past. Real's 20.5 are on pace to finish as fifth best ever, with a chance to improve in the playoffs, and possibly beyond.
The most curios case among these six, however, might be Olympiacos which ranks fourth in assists even though it is only 13th in scoring (79.0 ppg.) and 15th in field goals made (28.3 per game), which are both the lowest marks of all playoff teams. Olympiacos is the only team averaging below 80 points per game among the playoff teams, as the Reds average nearly 3 points fewer than the next team, Monaco (81.9 ppg.).
Taking, and not giving away
Monaco has committed the fewest turnovers and has forced the most turnovers this season. While that is interesting enough, it is even more interesting that Monaco has done so for the second consecutive season.
Monaco has recorded a league-low 9.97 turnovers per game and forced 13.5 per game, which is even with Panathinaikos as the league-best. Coach Sasa Obradovic’s men being the best in both categories for second year in a row cannot be a coincidence.
Only four Monaco players have averaged more than 1.0 turnover per game, with Mike James leading the pack with 2.1 TOpg., which is an acceptable number considering his involvement in the offense, which runs through him, and the amount of time he handles the ball.
There are 13 players who have averaged more turnovers than James this season and Monaco's second-worst in this category is Elie Okobo at 1.8 TOpg., ranking 35th in the league. With no other player in the top 75, Monaco has been doing an amazing job taking care of the basketball.
Maccabi's double-edged sword defense
When it comes to stealing the ball and overall defense, Maccabi is one team that is different than all the others. Maccabi allows more points than any other team in the league, but actually has an opportunistic defense that picks up the most steals.
Maccabi's league-best 7.3 steals might not be near an all-time single-season record, but it is the only team that during the regular season had eight players with at least 17 steals. Bonzie Colson leads the way with 47, fourth most in the league this season.
Such opportunistic defense acts as a double-edged sword. Maccabi has allowed a league-high 86.7 points per game, but that defensive leakage has been acceptable since all the steals often lead to transition baskets, hurting the opponents even more going the other way. That, in big part, has helped Maccabi enter the playoffs ranked first in scoring with 88.5 points per game.
Home-court comforts
Barcelona and Fenerbahce sport league-best 15-2 home records this season, but there are numbers that illustrate even better how much more comfortable both teams feel at home, especially offensively. Fenerbahce has averaged 92.7 points in home games, which ranks second in the league, but when we account for overtimes, Fenerbahce has the best per-40-minutes scoring offense. Meanwhile, that average drops by more than 15 points on the road, all the way down to 77.5 ppg., 13th best on the road. The second worst playoff team in that regard is Barcelona, which ranks fifth with 87.3 ppg. at home and 11th on the road (78.1 ppg.).
But that's not all. Fenerbahce has shot a league-best 44.1% at home from three-point range, and that accuracy staggeringly drops to 33.7% on the road, which was third from the bottom in the regular season. And again, Barcelona is on the similar path, ranking second in three-point shooting (39.2%) on home floor, while 15th (34.3%) on the road.
Barca will have home-court advantage in the playoffs against Olympiacos, which is one of the three playoff teams, along with Panathinaikos and Baskonia, that has actually shot from downtown slightly better on the road. The Reds have made 37.0% of their threes in Piraeus and 37.7% away from home.
Unlike Barcelona, Fenerbahce will likely have to overcome those shooting woes and find a way to steal (at least) one game in Monaco if it wants to reach the Final Four.
While we are on the subject, one team that might be just fine playing away from home is Baskonia. Not only did Baskonia sport a fifth-best 8-9 regular season record on the road, but it led the league in scoring (87.0 ppg.) in those games, compared to ranking just 12th at home (81.4 ppg.). Baskonia also had the biggest difference in three-point shooting, making 38.3% away from home and 35.1 at its Buesa Arena during the regular season.
Panathinaikos players and big minutes
Panathinaikos has five players, all of its usual starters, ranked among the top 25 in average minutes-played. Mathias Lessort (28:50 mpg.) leads the list, followed by Jerian Grant (28:44 mpg.), Dinos Mitoglou (28.36 mpg.), Marius Grigonis (26.56 mpg.) and Kendrick Nunn (26:51 mpg.). Sixth man Kostas Sloukas (26:25 mpg.), who started in 12 of 27 appearances, ranks 28th. The next highest average belongs to Juancho Hernangomez (16:33 mpg.).
On the other end of the spectrum are Real and Barcelona. Facundo Campazzo and Tomas Satoransky are the leaders in minutes played for Real and Barcelona respectively, and each has averaged fewer minutes than Sloukas. Campazzo (25:21 mpg.) ranks 36th, and Satoransky (25:20 mpg.) is right behind him. They are the only players on these two teams averaging more than 25 minutes, and behind Campazzo and Satoransky, both Real and Barcelona have nine more players who have averaged more than 15 minutes per game.