Former New Jersey Nets teammate, Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic competed against each other Thursday night as Maccabi Tel-Aviv knocked off Anadolu Efes 79-72 in Round 4 of the Euroleague. Maccabi managed to win despite giving up 17 offensive rebounds and turning the ball over 15 times, thanks to their efficient 60-percent shooting.
While their former Laker teammate, Derrick Fisher, spent over 20 hours over the last two days sitting in a conference room negotiating, his former backcourt mates just finished an intense battle on an actual basketball court.
Vujacic and Farmar battled the entire game as Vujacic had 21 points, and Farmar finished with 18 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds. After taking a few weeks to adjust to the European game, Farmar has established himself as a top-flight point guard with his ability to get to the paint with ease, and with the calm manner in which he can control a game. Vujacic, known as “The Machine” as he pretty much shoots every time he touches the ball, hasn’t been asked to do much to adjust his game. His insistence of jacking up shots may have cost his team the game, as he took some tough shots with multiple defenders in his face in the deciding moments of the game.
Stanko Barac, a 25-year-old 7-foot-1 Croatian whose rights have been held by the Indiana Pacers since the 2007 draft, displayed a nice combination of skill and power in the post while tallying 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting for Anadolu. Barac was able to largely negate the massive presence of Maccabi center “Sofo” Schortsanitis. While it would be a stretch to say Barac could be a force in the NBA, his combination of size, mobility and skill would make him a useful fourth or fifth big for an NBA squad.
Milwaukee Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova of Anadolu Efes, didn’t play a huge part in the game, finishing with 9 points and 6 rebounds and was largely outplayed by the efficient duo of Lior Eliyahu and David Blu. However, in Euroleague play, young players often are very inconsistent from week to week. Since there is so much time to prepare in between games, teams often have solid defensive game plans, and veteran players typically will have a big advantage over youngsters. Ilyasova is better suited to an NBA game where teams don’t have as much preparation time, and vets like Blu and Eliyahu haven’t spent a week studying all his moves.
With NBA labor discussions seemingly close to a climax, there is a possibility that this was the last week of NBA players in the Euroleague.
Will Danilo Gallinari, Andrei Kirilenko, Nicolas Batum, Rudy Fernandez and Deron Williams be around to play next week? We shall soon find out.
AJ Mitnick is an American currently living in Israel and working for Maccabi Rishon Lezion of the Israeli Basketball Super League. A recent graduate of IDC Herzliya, Mitnick also maintains a basketball blog, http://mindlessdribble.net, and is pursuing a professional basketball coaching license from the Wingate Institute in Israel.