Nowitzki @ Four Nations Cup

[gogojojo73]

This is taken from a post on Insidehoops-


Dirk Nowitzki, currently being with the German National and Nikoloz Tskitishvili of Georgia are playing this weekend at the Four Nations Cup in Braunschweig, Germany.

Going at it are Germany, Belarus, Georgia and Greece.
Televised are only games featuring Germay, so I will only comment on those.

The first game was Germany vs Belarus on Friday. I did not see very much, missed huge parts. The whole german team struggled, being saved by a huge performance of Dirk. He finished with 33 points, 12 rebounds to go with 5 blocks and 5 steals. Did not see much more, so lets move on to game No 2, Germany vs Georgia.

Georgia, home country of Zaza Pachulia, Vlad Stepania and former San Antonio draftee Viktor Sanikidze, was without all of them due to injury. Missing as well was Shammond Williams, who recieved the Georgian citizenship a while ago and now is with Georgias National team. He was not cleared to play from his club, Barcelona CF and is missed a lot by Georgia, now featuring only a very young and inexperienced backcourt.

So instead of seing 4 current NBA players, only Nowitzki and Tskitishvili went at it. Tskitishvili is with the team since this friday, and Georgia coach Gordon Herbert has admittedly not seen Nikoloz playing before and told german television before the game, that he did not know at which positions he would play him.

The game was decided in the opening minutes, as Germany rallied to a 11-0 in 3 minutes and lead by almost twenty after the first quarter. The game ended with difference of more that 35 points, Georgia was no match.

Nowitzki, defending Vladimir Boisa of Montepaschi Siena, Georgias best, showed that he improved on his man-to-man D. The 209cm big forward tried to get by the shaggy German, both from the perimeter and in the post. Nowitzki neither jumped on the various fakes, nor allowed any easy shots. He rather blocked most of them, as Boisa, who finished with 15 points did not score agains him but rather when he was off the court.

Of course, no real conclusions can be drawn from this game, we still have to see whether he can show this type of D in the NBA, but I really liked his effort in this game.

On offense, Nowitzki finished with 15 points as well, but had a horrid shooting night, He wasnt much needed on this end though, as Germany was able to score in a variety of ways.

On a sidenote, Jo Herber of West Virginia did not play in the first game vs Belarus and got some meaningless playing time in the game today.



Now to the interesting part. Nowitzki and his efforts on the defensive ends are reported to be improved every offseason, so thats not really news.

What was news to me is, that Nikoloz Tskitishvili is not only not a worthy NBA player, but that he has absolutely no skills beyond his shaky shot out to the college 3point line and his ability to run laps without hurting himself. He did not start the game and when inserted showed why he did not, by missing four FIBA 3pointers. They were pretty open shots, so he was not reluctant to shoot those or was under heavy pressure. He just was unable to hit those easy baskets, something that supposedly is his forte. He then went on to fake a german player on the right wing, dribble once, do a spin move and miss a midrang jumper, maybe 15 feet out. Wasted motion, wasted dribbling and a missed shot, that finished him for the first half. He was able to connect on a breakaway lyup though, once again showing his insane ability to move faster than the average walking 7 footer without hurting himself.

He did not start the second half either. When inserted, he was able to connect on a wide open three, which made me wonder, if the guy actually might have some skills. He directly showed that he does not have any worth noting. In garbage time minutes, he could get by a german center in the left low post area and had a wide open left handed layup with former some german power forward trying to play help defense. Instead of making the layup after the spin, he passed the ball to the Georgian pf under the basket, being left alone. Too bad, that this was a 24 second shot clock violation, as Tskitishvili only had 3 seconds left on the clock when he recieved the ball. He passed up that layup over an onrushing help defender being more than 4 inches smaller for a shot clock violation.

That really summed up his game, nice teasers with some fluid motion, but in reality unable to do anything beyond that. Im not sure, what skills lured the TWolves to sign him after seing him play in only one summer league game. After watching this game, I guess his most impressive skill is the spin move, which he was able to make twice this game in a wasted motion.

On a sidenote, he almost got posterized in garbage time, but luckily could evade that, because germanies Demond Greene rather opted for the layup right over Nikoloz and because they dont make any posters of meaningless plays in meaningless games

[capitalcity]

Nowitzki, defending Vladimir Boisa of Montepaschi Siena, Georgias best, showed that he improved on his man-to-man D. The 209cm big forward tried to get by the shaggy German, both from the perimeter and in the post. Nowitzki neither jumped on the various fakes, nor allowed any easy shots. He rather blocked most of them, as Boisa, who finished with 15 points did not score agains him but rather when he was off the court.

...my favorite part.

[DevinHarriswillstart]

Whipsers of Don Nelson not teaching defense come creeping at the back door.

[snoop]

dirks d has improved for 2 years now.

[birdsanctuary]

Dirk starts with D. I like the chances of this Mavs team!