Stats review: How Zalgiris thrives on late-clock coolness

Sportradar takes a deeper look at Zalgiris's excellence with the shot-clock running down

The five teams above the fray in the EuroLeague standings entering the week all notched victories in Round 9. Zalgiris Kaunas was one of those teams, holding onto its spot atop the landscape with a late surge past a tough Valencia Basket team at Zalgirio Arena. Scoring 7 points over three possessions with the shot clock under 4 seconds in the final 6 minutes, Coach Tomas Masiulis’s team delivered several deflating blows to the opposing defense under time pressure.

That has quietly been a key to Zalgiris's success all season. Not only has no team operated late into the shot clock more frequently than Zalgiris — a byproduct of the team's 18th-ranked pace — but no team has scored as efficiently as the Lithuanian side either. Zalgiris's 1.02 points per late clock possession would rank a remarkable third in the EuroLeague in overall half-court offensive efficiency; it is taking and making quality shots at an elite level even when it grinds down the clock.

A great deal of that success can be traced to its poise driving and kicking under pressure and its 45% three-point shooting with time winding down. The collective coolness of this group — and especially that of Sylvain Francisco and Maodo Lo orchestrating things — has helped Zalgiris control the pace of games and been a valuable complement to its second-ranked defensive efficiency.

Being able to burn the clock and knock down shots has had pretty clear implications on the defensive end this season as three of the season’s four most efficient late clock offenses also rank among the four stingiest teams guarding in the open floor. Given that short, shot-clock possessions are converted for just 0.83 points per possession on average — down from 0.87 last year and well off the 1.01 points per possession teams are scoring on all other half-court possessions this year, being able to convert those shots not only demoralizes opposing defenses, but prevents them from playing with pace as well.

Among individual scorers, Francisco and Lo rank first and third in the EuroLeague in shot clock scoring respectively with Francisco’s 4.8 points per game sitting well ahead of his league-best 3.4 per game from last year, pretty comfortably the top mark of the last 15 years. With Lo outpacing his mark from last season as well, that duo has changed the calculus for Zalgiris with their late-clock scoring thus far.

While Tyson Carter of Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade has missed the last several games with respiratory issues, his 4.3 late-clock points per game would rank among the top handful of marks this decade. Dwayne Bacon of Dubai Basketball, Carsen Edwards of Virtus Bologna, and Sterling Brown of Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade round out the next tier of scorers, with Edwards’s efficiency standing out among individual leaders.

Anadolu Efes Istanbul and AS Monaco warrant mention as well, with both teams scoring at a well-above-average rate late in the clock, giving up under 10 points per game in transition defensively, and Monaco burning the candle from both ends, ranking sixth in transition scoring too.

While the season is still extremely young, a lot of things have gone right for Zalgiris and how well its execution and shot-making under time pressure holds in the coming months could go a long way towards a return to the postseason following a two-year absence.