Greece vs Germany: EuroBasket quarter-final preview: What to expect

After a few big surprises, like Italy eliminating Serbia, the final 8 teams of the EuroBasket 2022 have been revealed.

Compared to Hedgeout.net’s initial Top-8 team predictions, everyone expected Greece to reach this stage of the tournament.

On the contrary, no one from our team expected Germany to reach the Quarter-finals, simply because of injuries, their group difficulty and therefore a possible difficult opponent in the Round of 16.

If one thing is certain in short-period tournaments, it is that no game is a priori easy, and once a team finds rhythm on consecutive games, it can cause problems for any competitor, regardless of its status.

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This is totally expected from Greece’s and Germany’s clash, a clash between a heavy favorite for a medal and a team on form that in a lot of people’s minds wouldn’t be chasing a semi-final appearance.

Furthermore, If the special characteristics of both teams are taken into account, an extremely close and hard fighting game is expected on Tuesday night.

Germany’s Forwards/Centers vs Greece’s switch defense

One of the most crucial points in the game will be Greece’s reaction to the High-Low plays of Germany.

Die Mannschaft has a lot of good passers besides its point guards and produces many post touches through High-Low situations by using Horns set plays, for example, and taking advantage of tall mobile forward/centers that play together and can shoot and/or pass, like Johannes Thiemann, Daniel Theis and mainly Johannes Voigtmann (2.5 assists per game).

Especially for teams that deploy switch defense and a lot of small ball lineups (like Greece) this tactic can be decisive as in case of single player coverage it most likely produces a good look in the low post through a lob pass and in case of a double team on the post a mid-range shot for the passer or a three-point shot for a wing.

However, Greece has generally shown decent defensive rotations, smart fouling and good positioning in the tournament so far and has dealt effectivelly with these situations, especially when Giannis defended the post entry pass.

In addition to that, the versatility of the German forward/centers makes the team’s offense very unpredictable as this means that it can support 4 out 1 in, 3-2 motion and 5-out set plays.

This is reflected on Germany’s offensive numbers, as they are currently the tournament’s 3rd best shooting team and 4th in PPG, behind only Greece, Serbia and Slovenia.

Greece’s defense against the pick and roll and Germany’s plethora of shooting wings

Against the Czech Republic and Tomas Satoransky, Greece had to stop a top-quality PG for the first time since the tournament started. The Czech PG finished the game with an all-time EuroBasket high of 17 assists.

Thus, it is clear that Greek defense struggled in this aspect of the game. For this game, Germany has Dennis Schroder, mainly a shoot-first PG, but nonetheless a good passer (7 APG) and an excellent penetrator that can be paired with Maodo Lo in the perimeter or play with two shooting wings to try to put pressure on Greece’s perimeter defense.

As for the shooting wings, the German NT is blessed with a good number of them, something extremely important in FIBA Basketball.

The Germans are currently 4th on 3P% and 3P attempts, producing a lot of points behind the arc, but most importantly creating space for the slashing abilities of Dennis Schroder and Franz Wagner as well as passing lanes for easy buckets.

It is clear that the German offense is versatile, meaning that maybe Greece will be forced to give driving lanes to wings, like Niels Giffey and Andreas Obst, or the long shot to Dennis Schroder (22.2% on 7.2 3PA per game).

Germany’s team defense tactics against Giannis

For the longest part of the EuroBasket, each opposing team of Greece tried to set a wall of players between Giannis and the basket to close the possible lanes and make the Greek star to earn his points, while giving open three-point shots to Greek players that are not consistent shooters.

The German NT is a tall team that can line up big bodies for this treatment of the “Greek Freak”. I fully expect that Johannes Thiemann and Daniel Theis will have a very important role on defense against Giannis with plenty of other players contributing on help defense.

Also, the Germans will possibly have the same defensive tactic as the Czechs to stop the Greek fast breaks by trying to stop the ball (and especially Giannis) as soon as the Greeks get a defensive rebound.

However, even if this tactic succeeds, my personal feeling is that if the Greek NT shoots around 40% from beyond the arc, it will be the team that will progress to the semi-finals of EuroBasket 2022.

Greece hasn’t been in medal contention since 2009 despite sporadically having great rosters with experienced players over the last 10 years, while the Germans have the home- court advantage and their last medal was in 2005.

It is clear that both teams have great motivation to win and advance to the semifinals of one of the best EuroBasket tournaments of all time.

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