MIES (Switzerland) - The sixth week of action in the ninth season of the Basketball Champions League continued on Tuesday, and there were plenty of highlights on a three-game evening across the continent. This is what we learned last night.
Galatasaray's well-oiled machine
If you had to figure out who has the best offense this year, you'd probably look at the advanced stats. And you'd get this answer: Unicaja, Wurzburg, Manisa, Manresa, Derthona, Rytas, Nymburk and Murcia. The first four with unreal ratings higher than 120 points per 100 possessions, Unicaja are actually scoring at 132.1 per 100, which is otherworldly.
Maybe you're not into that kind of stuff, so you could go with the usual points per game. The answer is pretty much the same, Unicaja, Manisa, Manresa, Wurzburg, Nymburk, Rytas, Murcia and Derthona.
And yet, the ninth best team in both departments has the numbers to prove they are the best offense of the year.
Because, on Tuesday, Galatasaray went over 90 points for the sixth time in 2024.
They had 95 against Bertram Derthona Basket, 95 against Telekom Baskets Bonn, 93 against MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg, and 93 against JDA Bourgogne Dijon, plus 103 against RASTA Vechta and now 91 against Promitheas Patras BC Vikos Cola.
No other team has more than four such games this year, not even Unicaja en route to winning the BCL title back in April.
Still, when you're watching them play, you have a feeling they are stuck at times, even though guys like Otis Livingston, James Palmer or Angel Delgado can create something from nothing on any given possession.
Their offense becomes more fluid when Bugrahan Tuncer is in the game. When the experienced point guard stepped in off the bench against Promitheas, he picked up 5 assists in just six minutes of action, throwing alley-oops and no-looks like nobody's business.
He's the biggest reason why Galatasaray became the first team with two games of 30+ assists this calendar year.
Tuncer running the show, with Sadik Emir Kabaca and Goksenin Koksal knocking down catch-and-shoot opportunities, that could be crucial for coach Yakup Sekizkok, because it unlocks the 90+ territory for Galatasaray and opens up the floor for the 1v1 specialists.
So... What's their problem then? Well, Galatasaray have only one right now - it's called ERA Nymburk.
The Czech champions are back with a bang, looking like a completely different team compared to their previous two BCL stints, off to a 4-0 start under coach Francesco Tabellini, and to steal the top spot from them, Galatasaray would have to defeat Nymburk by at least 13 points next month.
On the road, in Czechia, too. It's not impossible, but they'll need their defense to be as good as their offense to book a direct flight to the Round of 16 and avoid the Play-Ins drama this season.
Quick notes from Tuesday's games
ERA Nymburk scored 53 points in the first half of each of their last two BCL games, after scoring more than 50 points in the first half of two of their previous 20 games in the competition.
ERA Nymburk won their game against Vechta by a 25-point margin, their third largest win away from home in the competition, and their biggest win on the road since December 2020 when they beat Keravnos by a 33-point differential (102-69).
ERA Nymburk grabbed 21 offensive rebounds while RASTA Vechta had 20 defensive rebounds; this is Nymburk’s third game with 20+ offensive boards in the BCL this season, as many as all the other teams combined.
The 55 points scored by King Szczecin are the fewest points ever allowed by Filou Oostende in a BCL game; the Belgians allowed fewer than 60 points in a BCL game for the first time since October 2022 when they conceded 59 against another Polish team, Legia Warszawa.
Filou Oostende forced King Szczecin into 21 turnovers, a joint-high number of turnovers by an Oostende opponent in a BCL game (also 21 turnovers by La Laguna Tenerife in January 2017).
Pierre-Antoine Gillet (Oostende) ended a run of 23 straight BCL games with, at least, a 3-pointer scored; the last time he went scoreless in a BCL game was in January 2022.