A series of unfortunate events
2024–2025 EuroLeague Playoffs| Game 3 | Efes 77 — Panathinaikos 81
On the last day of April in the year 2025 Ergin Ataman, the head coach of Turkish national basketball team, came to İstanbul demanding justice. İstanbul is not the best place to come looking for justice these days, somebody should have told him, unless you are willing to fight for it. Luckily for Mr. Ataman his interpretation of justice agrees with that of Thrasymachus. “…justice is simply what is in the interest of the stronger party”. And that would be him, the almighty king of European basketball, the winner of cups, the foreteller of victories… And what interests Ataman above all else is winning, and he got his justice at the end. And if sports were allowed to live and breathe as it should as an organic part of public life, he should have been asked a simple question after the game: Was he content with the state of justice in İstanbul, a city he once called home?
The game, oh yes, the game… It is easy to feel at home at Abdi İpekçi Arena, it has a very familiar feel to it, as if you will run into an old friend at any time or make a new one. Efes fans are passionate about their team and the game, yet unable to capitalize on that passion simply due to a lack of organization. And as in life, so during a game, it is very easy to find yourself following instructions from a man with a mic when you are not organized.
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Nunn did the usual Nunnly things, but it was Mithouglu who stood out last night, draining three after three at crucial moments. The run that took Efes back into the game was a spectacular sequence of basketball, but when everything’s said and done it was the series of unfortunate events that finds itself onto the surface in this particular memory collection. The series of inexplicable misses from under the basket earlier in the game, the forced Bryant three towards the end, and the block that threw Shane onto the ground in the dying moments… The most puzzling though was the sequence of events that started with Hernangomez going down after being fouled under the basket, and while getting ready to shoot his FTs being subbed out by Sloukas, who coldly drained them both, only to be subbed back in a few minutes later. Anyone who follows NBA basketball would have freaked out at the sight, and so did we, with the memory of hack a Shaq years all so vivid in our minds. You can not get back into the game if you do not make your free throws, why do you think Kobe was shooting FTs with a torn achilles? A rule that makes so much intuitive and practical sense, and prevents obvious cases of abuse, it turns out, does not exist in Europe. It is a mess alright, different rules, different competitions as Obradovic recently pointed out. So what exactly is the rule, nobody seemed to know. Hmm, so wait a minute, you are telling me the seeker of justice, Ataman the Great, masterfully subbed out Hernangomez, a 63% FT shooter, for a 93% free throw shooter Sloukas, feigning injury, only to nonchalantly sub him back a few moments later, at the end of a crucial play off game, with minutes to spare.
The unfortunate turn of events was, as a review of the FIBA rule book shows, the result of two sets of rules working in tandem — one dictating a player receiving treatment or assistance needing to be subbed out, and the other laying down no restrictions on a free throw shooter subbed out due injury except for the substitute’s minimum playing time (end of the running game clock). A set of rules open to abuse by simply sending in the team doctor to treat a basketball player whom you wish away from the FT line, only to be replaced by your best FT shooter. A bit more light thrown on the incident by Anıl Uysal, a basketball commentator at Sports Digitale, who shared that it was Banchi who alerted the refs that Hernangomez as per the rule book needed to be subbed out, which explains him stepping away from the FT line after a brief deliberation by the refs. He is anti- Ataman, Brother points out upon learning this, indeed, indeed….
The lack of rebounding from the Pilseners stood out, so did the impressive performance of PJ Dozier, who will be a game time decision tonight. Dozier is oozing with jersey potential, bringing to the table one quality Efes is so dearly missing, consistency. One last word on the MVP, Shane at times looked disengaged on the court this regular season. I do not know him enough to understand what that means, and it does not fit my mental model of him at all. Yet those fleeting moments of disengagement were there during the game, like a shadow passing on the periphery of your vision, hard to discern, yet definitely there.
And for the defending champions…. PAO less than a year after becoming the darlings of Euroleague, is quickly turning into as tiresome to watch as the champions they have dethroned. Too much other stuff, spit and fire thrown with abandon from the top, fanned by the words of spite and fury from their MVP, in the absence of the joyful Lessort, is largely overshadowing the spectacle of basketball, and the efforts of many. Too bad.
