Round 3 on Season 3 again offered us some treats in terms of close match and interesting box scores.
demars and LennuK. already provided us some analysis on their matches. As for Hårdboll's free throws - and I'm sure most of us would agree in addition to demars who was proving this yesterday - you'd need a huge choir singing Haleluja in chorus during free throws, if you'd have to settle for fouling Hårdbolls' players, they're really that good from the charity stripe.
Also VIV-RAJ (123-125) proved to be a very close call, reigning HGL bronze medalist Rajdersi was able to win this nail biter by 2 points. VIV made a prediction on RAJ's offensive focus, which was slightly off - I wonder how much this affected the match outcome, and was it even decisive factor? Of course one could find other differences between teams from the box score, but if we want to boil it down to one thing, that's one thing that could've affected the outcome.
LGM-LMS 104-89: While technically this wasn't a close match, couple of interesting observations.
First, teams were ice cold behind 3 point arc, combined of 2 out of 30 (6,7%!)! Hardly ever do you see as cold combined three point shooting in a match... LGM won rebounds by 10, mainly due to the fact that they won offensive rebounds 10-1. And while LGM only had 3 less FG attempts than LMS during match, they still had 45 (!) free throw attempts from the line, as opposed to "only" 20 by LGM.
KKS-VPO 76-109: While KKS lost this one, interesting thing in box score was that KKS had no less than 30 second chance attempts (while VPO's 16 wasn't bad either by any means)! But VPO held KKS at only 22,3% FG shooting, so that's what made the difference, in addition to their relentless defense overall, forcing KKS to 16 turnovers and allowing only to 9 assists.
ED-HB 95-100: Teams shot combined of 45/47 from the free throw line, which is 95,7%!
EOS-FRE 109-98: EOS beat FRE on the glass big time, taking the battle of offensive rebounds by 25 to 10 (total rebounds 58-41 to EOS), and acquiring 21 more FG attempts during match (while taking only 8 less free throw attempts during the match).
TRO-SUM 85-103: While SUM won quite comfortably, their percentages behind 3 point line were somewhat similar. On 2p FG's SUM on the other hand had a clear advantage (52,7 to 33,3%), and SUM's attacking flow was rated to 9, which is no wonder when you consider 30 out of their 78 FG's were assisted field goals (TRO at 11 out of 80, and attacking flow rating 5). TRO was dominating on offensive glass, having 18 second chance attempts against SUM's 8, and were also solid from the FT line (at 84%), but these weren't enough to make this a tight match.
EDIT: Incorrect 2p FG percentages on TRO-SUM, as I read shooting statistics "the European way" initially.
Last edited by Wagner at 10/29/2025 5:26:39 AM