The Games of week 7:
Hapoel vs Baskonia
Week 6 delivered plenty, but nothing came with quite the same blend of tactics, pace manipulation and outright shotmaking chaos as Hapoel vs Baskonia in Sofia. Two teams sitting far apart in the standings but entering with the same momentum, both fresh off wins, set the tone for a game that never quite settled into a single rhythm because neither coach wanted it to.
Hapoel opened with a 6–2 run, and from there the first quarter became a series of traded punches. The Israelis leaned into a two-big lineup with Motley and Oturu bullying the paint, crashing the offensive glass for extra possessions and forcing Baskonia’s defense to bend early. On the other end, Hapoel switched everything, daring Baskonia to hunt matchups and isolations rather than flow into their trademark ball movement. For a stretch it worked. Then Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot entered and shifted the tenor of the quarter, throwing down five fast points, sparking stops and giving Baskonia the transition runway they desperately needed. The Basques hit an absurd 9-of-11 inside the arc in the quarter, almost all of it fueled by early offense. But Chris Jones’ half-court heave at the horn put Hapoel up 26–24 after one, a snapshot of the knife-edge balance between the teams.
The second quarter was where Hapoel went hunting. With Nowell on the floor, they targeted the 5-foot-7 point guard possession after possession, especially on the low block, and ripped off an 8–2 run in barely a minute. Markus Howard briefly stemmed the bleeding with a three, but it never turned the tide because Baskonia’s pick-and-roll defense continued to leak and the rebounding imbalance stayed tilted. Eventually Micic took command, threading into the paint, spraying passes, then unleashing the classic step-back three that finally nudged Hapoel’s lead into double digits. And the free throws mattered: Hapoel a perfect 12-for-12 at halftime, Baskonia only 5-for-6, helping explain the 58–48 lead at the break.
The second half opened like the first, basket trading both ways until Hamidou Diallo detonated into the game. Galbiatti engineered a weak-side skip action that isolated Diallo against Micic in space, and the American carved him up for six points across five minutes, trimming the Hapoel lead to five and forcing an Itoudis time-out. Itoudis hit the right button. Elijah Bryant took over, scoring six of Hapoel’s eight points in a quick 8–2 surge, restoring the double-digit cushion and reestablishing control heading into a third-quarter finish of 86–74.
In the fourth Hapoel found yet another pressure point. This time the target was Markus Howard, and every possession seemed designed to drag him into the action. It worked mercilessly. A 10–2 run ballooned the lead to 20, sending Galbiatti scrambling for a time-out. Baskonia gave the expected counterpunch, trimming the gap to 12, but they never fully closed it. A final 14–3 burst from Hapoel, powered by Tyler Ennis scoring 10 of those points, slammed the door and sealed a 114–89 win.
The Hapoel offense practically floated. They shot a ridiculous 63.6 percent from two, 57.1 percent from three, and 95.7 percent from the line, with seven players in double figures. Elijah Bryant led the charge with a stunning performance: 24 points, nine boards and four assists, a complete takeover without ever feeling forced.
For Baskonia, TLC’s 19 and four other teammates in double digits offered positives, but the elephant in the room was the three-point shooting: 5-for-18, just 27.8 percent, not nearly enough to keep pace when the opponent simply refuses to miss. Baskonia is still chasing that first road win. Hapoel is headed back to the top of the table.
Real Madrid vs Panathinaikos
Real Madrid walked into this one knowing Panathinaikos was wounded, thin up front and still the kind of team that forces you to solve a new puzzle every trip down the floor. What they didn’t quite expect was to get carved up by a wave of lefties who treated the first half like a showcase of angles, pace changes and surgical pick-and-roll reads.
Madrid opened the game by going straight at Kendrick Nunn, and the early math worked: two quick fouls. The problem was everything happening behind him. Len offered almost no resistance, piling up defensive mistakes and letting Mitoglou walk into comfortable looks. It had that NBA-late-on-a-Wednesday feel, the “Memphis-or-Sacramento-road-night” brand of defense where a big just sort of drifts and hopes no one notices. Panathinaikos noticed. And punished it.
TJ Shorts’ form returned along with his grin. He looked like the Paris version of himself: freer, faster and always one dribble away from bending the entire floor. Together with Sloukas, the PAO lefties were dismantling Madrid’s defense for two straight quarters, scoring and spraying passes like clockwork. By the time the second quarter hit the final minute, Panathinaikos was shooting a wild 71 percent inside the arc. Real? Stuck at 48 percent. And the PnR between those guards and Faried kept generating angles Llull simply couldn’t navigate; every screen felt like a trapdoor opening under Madrid’s base. Two or three posters on Tavares later, the building knew exactly who controlled the tempo.
The lone Madrid spark was Maledon, who stacked eight straight to cut the margin, but it barely registered. Scariolo again went to his recent go-to: the 3×2 zone he tried against Barça and Valencia. Against Valencia and now PAO, the ball pinged side to side too fast; the zone never had time to form its teeth. PAO hit the break up 14. Zero turnovers. Madrid had five.
The third quarter didn’t change much. The same problems persisted for Real, though Panathinaikos did gift them a small path back with a stretch of sloppy possessions. Madrid closed the gap but never made the leaders sweat. Midway through the quarter Scariolo pivoted, rolling out small-ball with Okeke at the five to get more switchable length on the floor, bodies that could chase PAO’s giant wings like Cedi and still have a chance of running with Faried.
Feliz used that window to stack a career-high night, but on the other side Sloukas was playing puppet master. He controlled every detail: buzzer-beaters, drives into bigger bodies, off-rhythm jumpers, everything. It was veteran command and it kept Madrid at arm’s length.
Madrid won the fourth by four, but the late push never threatened the outcome. Panathinaikos simply managed the lead with the steadiness of a team that knew its matchup advantages and rode them until the final whistle.
By the numbers PAO’s blueprint was obvious: only four turnovers, 36 percent from deep on strong volume, and a ruthless 61 percent inside. Real trimmed their miscues to nine but hit just 33 percent from three, nowhere near enough to offset the defensive issues that never stopped snowballing.
TJ Shorts walked away MVP with a PIR of 24, a sharp 19 points, six assists and only one turnover. Hernangómez (11 rebounds) and Faried (four offensive boards) gave PAO the interior consistency they needed. Madrid had pockets of resistance, but Panathinaikos controlled everything that truly dictated the game.
Valencia vs Real Madrid
Valencia vs Real Madrid delivered exactly the kind of edge you expect when an in-country rivalry spills onto the biggest European stage. The game carried that familiar mix of tactical brinkmanship and emotional undertow, and even before the ball went up you could feel both coaches moving their pieces.
Pedro Martínez made the first gambit by inserting Pradilla into the starting lineup to mirror Lyles, while using Reuvers to stretch the floor and tempt Tavares out of the paint. Scariolo countered by stashing Tavares on Pradilla, an effort to hide his anchor and keep Real’s last line of defense intact.
Madrid opened with a crisp 5–0 run while grinding late into the clock to dictate tempo. Valencia’s start wasn’t pretty, but their path into the game was. Stops first, then transition, then rhythm. Scariolo tried to slow the rising Valencia tide with a 3–2 zone after dead balls, planting a big wing up top to muddy the view. The wrinkle lasted only until Mario Hezonja arrived and immediately torched the game with seven points in roughly a minute.
Valencia didn’t flinch. They kept pushing off every rebound and even after makes, refusing to let Real organize. The first quarter ended with the home team up 22–21.
The second quarter opened 7–2 for Valencia, but Theo Maledon stepped in and started reorganizing the chessboard with three straight assists. He manipulated Valencia’s help with his eyes, nudging Real back in front 30–29 and forcing Martínez into a timeout. The answer was clean and clever. Pradilla hit back-to-back threes, and Valencia dialed up a sharp zone-attack set that dragged Tavares out of the lane. The signature sequence of the half came next: Reuvers hammering home a lob dunk over Tavares, a momentum spike that propelled Valencia into the break.
Madrid’s second-quarter shooting was ice cold, going 0-for-7 from deep. Their perfect 11-for-11 from the line kept them alive while Valencia sat at 3-for-6. Hezonja and Lyles produced 19 of Madrid’s 38 points. Valencia’s 10-for-24 from three and only four turnovers spelled out the 45–38 halftime lead.
The third quarter opened with the Trey Lyles show, the former NBA forward piling up seven points in two minutes to pull the margin to four. Valencia slowed down and struggled to manufacture clean looks until Moore checked in and brought instant scoring pop. It steadied them enough to keep the same seven-point cushion entering the final quarter.
The fourth became a sequence of swings. Taylor’s and-one capped a 5–0 run and pushed the margin to 12, forcing Scariolo into a timeout. Campazzo engineered Real’s response with a quick 5–0 burst, but Valencia answered with four unanswered of their own and nudged the lead back into double digits. Scariolo tried one last shape shift, moving Lyles to the five and Deck to the four for the final minutes, but nothing budged. A Taylor layup in the final minute sealed it. Valencia moves to 2–0 against Real Madrid this season and Real continues to labor on the road.
Hezonja’s first-half brilliance turned into a rough second half full of shaky decisions. Lyles, Maledon and Campazzo scored 35 of Madrid’s 38 second-half points. The bigger issue was shooting: just 38 percent on twos and 23 percent on threes. Only the 29-for-34 from the free throw line kept the score within reach.
Valencia simply played cleaner. Fifty percent on twos, thirty-nine percent on threes and a tidy nine turnovers. That was the difference. The margins in this rivalry are always small, and Valencia owned the ones that mattered.
Key Performances of the Past Week:
Isaia Cordinier’s night against FC Bayern felt like one of those games where a player doesn’t just rise to the moment, he bends the entire night around his energy. Anadolu Efes walked in carrying a three-game losing streak and the weight of a season slipping into uncomfortable territory. They needed someone to punch a hole in the fog. Cordinier didn’t just do that; he tore the whole thing open.
With Shane Larkin forced to leave the game, the French wing saw his usage skyrocket and posted the highest usage rate of the entire EuroLeague season by a wide margin. He responded with a career-high 26 points on a ruthlessly efficient line: 7 of 9 on twos, 2 of 4 from beyond the arc and a perfect 6 of 6 at the line. He attacked the paint fearlessly, finishing strong, hunting contact and converting everything he earned.
Yet the part that will make the Efes coaching staff exhale was the two-way commitment. On defense he made his presence felt, producing two steals and anchoring an elite team defensive rating of 107.3 while he was on the floor. This was the best version of Cordinier, the one who lifts the floor of everyone around him. Efes need this version to show up with regularity if they want to pull themselves out of the early-season mud.
Elijah Bryant also demanded attention with his performance in Round 10 against Baskonia. His PIR of 38 was the kind you circle immediately on the box score. He gave Baskonia 24 points with an efficiency line fit for a top five daily fantasy slot, added 9 rebounds and 4 assists and carried the offense whenever it needed stabilizing. Kamenja earned an honorable mention with 20 points on 9 of 12 shooting and 9 rebounds, 4 of them on the offensive glass.
Round 11 belonged to TJ Shorts. Not because it was the most explosive line of the week; it wasn’t. But because it was an “amazing game” in every way that matters for a guard of his style and responsibility. Shorts scored 19 points, played efficiently, and in stretches somewhat outplayed Kendrick Nunn and overshadowed the former MVP. He added 6 assists and had only one turnover in 30 minutes. It was the kind of poised, electric performance that tilts a matchup without needing monster numbers to tell the story.
Standings Watch:
What is happening in Madrid? That is the question circling around the league after a brutal double week that sent Real Madrid tumbling below the .500 mark and out of the play-in zone. For a roster with this much talent, this is unfamiliar and frankly strange territory.
The defense has stayed strong, still rating as a top 5 unit in the EuroLeague, contesting well, rotating with purpose and generally doing enough to win. The problem is everything on the other side of the ball. Their offense has struggled badly and has been the culprit in most of their defeats. Even on nights when the stops are there and the structure holds, they simply cannot score enough to come out on top. Scariolo has to put an offensive revamp at the top of his priority chart because this section of the schedule can make or break Madrid’s season.
On the other end of the spectrum we have Fenerbahce trending upward. After that blowout loss to Madrid three rounds ago something clicked. They have now won three straight. If we are being honest, among those three opponents only Hapoel fits the description of a proper team to beat, since Asvel and Maccabi are not competing at the same level right now. Even then there were warning signs, like the 17 turnovers they committed against Maccabi, though they still managed to win. The next round they cleaned it up, cutting it to 12 turnovers against a much better team like Hapoel. That game in particular felt like a complete team effort, each and every player helping on the box score. The reward is visible. They sit in the tenth spot and have already climbed into play-in position.
Week 8 Games to Watch:
Anadolu Efes against FC Barcelona in Istanbul suddenly feels like one of the most intriguing games of the entire round. Efes finally crawled back into the win column but lost Larkin for the foreseeable future, a plot twist that reshapes everything they do offensively. On the other side Barcelona arrive having taken both games last week with interim coach Oscar Orellana, but this time Xavi Pascual is back on the bench and there is an expectation of structure returning to their rotations and late game decisions. Both teams struggle to defend for long stretches and both can get outrageously hot on offense in a matter of possessions, the kind of matchup that morphs into a high scoring track meet before you even realize it. It fits every description of a must watch.
Olympiacos against Paris is another one that jumps off the page. Paris snapped their losing streak with an impressive win over Valencia and now step into one of the toughest buildings in the league. The contrast in styles is pure basketball theater. Paris lean on their lead guards to control everything, tempo, spacing, creation, all of it. Olympiacos exist on the opposite end of that spectrum, a movement heavy, ball sharing system that flows possession to possession without relying on on-ball creators. Polar opposites, meeting on the same court, and both needing a statement win. It is hard not to circle it as one of the games of the week.
Round twelve adds even more spice. Wednesday opens with a French derby between Asvel and Monaco and that alone earns a place on any must watch list. These games tend to get emotional, fast, and you can usually toss the standings out the window. Hapoel against Milano belongs in this category as well. Milano have quietly won four in a row and now face the first seed. Hapoel dropped their last game against Fener and this becomes a game both teams appear to need. The stakes, the form, the tension, it all lines up.
What’s at Stake:
Barcelona, post-Peñarroya, suddenly look like a team that forgot how to lose. Two wins in the double week: one over Virtus, one over Bayern by a single point and the most telling change isn’t some tactical overhaul or a shiny new offensive wrinkle. It’s that everyone, genuinely everyone, stepped up and contributed scoring-wise instead of relying on the same five guys to bail them out. It feels more balanced, more democratic, more resilient.
But the problems they carried before the coaching change didn’t magically vanish. They still lack real interior presence, and the rebounding numbers keep screaming the same thing: this team can’t consistently win the battle on the glass. They take care of the ball well, they move it, they create good looks, but every defensive stop becomes a coin flip because someone is sneaking in for an offensive board. It’s the kind of flaw that doesn’t just disappear, it needs personnel. A rebound-first center, more size on the wings, someone who can tilt the physics of the game back in their favor.
Xavi Pascual inherits a good situation but not an easy one. Barcelona sit in sixth, stable for now, and trending in the right direction. But if they want to climb, if they want to look like a true contender again, strengthening the interior isn’t optional, it’s the key that determines how high this resurgence can actually go.
EuroLeague Headlines:
EuroLeague beware: TJ Shorts might have just found his groove in Athens, and when he finds his groove, entire defenses start looking like they’re on roller skates. The American point guard looked more comfortable than ever this past double week, averaging 16 points and 6 assists while playing like someone who finally figured out exactly how to steer this Panathinaikos machine. His scoring pop adds yet another weapon to an offense already stacked with firepower, but it’s the subtler stuff that could truly elevate the Greens. The pace control. The feel. The way he tilts the floor to create advantages others cash in on. If this wasn’t a one-off but the beginning of a trend, Panathinaikos may have just unlocked a new level.
While Shorts is rising, the EuroLeague guard landscape keeps getting hit with body blows. Kennan Evans’ long-awaited return ended in heartbreak with a season-ending Achilles tear, a gut punch for both him and Zalgiris. Shane Larkin’s injury adds another layer of trouble, sidelining him for two months at a moment when Efes desperately needs stability, shot creation and leadership.
Olympiacos is trying to get ahead of their own issues, searching for what they’re calling a “playoff level guard,” which sounds great until you remember how late in the calendar we already are. Those guys don’t exactly sit on shelves waiting to be picked up.
And then there’s the whisper making the rounds: Malachi Flynn might be on his way out of Bahçeşehir. If that door really cracks open, don’t be surprised if several teams start sprinting toward it. In a season where backcourts are getting tested everywhere, one move could reshape an entire playoff race.
This article was written by the European Hoops team: Tiago Cordeiro, João Caeiro and André Lemos. Make sure you give us a follow on Twitter at @EthosEuroleague!
