Brazil beats Iran in FIBA World Championship - Turkey

Brazil defeated Iran 81-65 last night. in all fairness, Iran played well. players put their heart out there and showed some serious attitude. the right attitude. most of the time the were tough on Defence (but not quite enough, and i will tell why i claim that) and used jumpers more often that they used to do in World cup Qualifying games and ABC Asian Championship. These are good signs. the line up usually runs the floor well and transition speed was acceptable. but is acceptable enough to compete at that level? well not really.

let's start with defence and statistics shows that although Iran had show tough defence but it somehow never went further than individuals showing their skills. 5 BS by Hamed Haddadi, 2 BS Sahakian & one by Veisi and Kazemi each, both of which were brilliant pieces of play. somehow, specially down the stretch, Iran failed to show the team defence and gave away too many open looks to deadly Barbosa, Giovannoni and Splitter; while allowing Huertas dish the passes to Splitter and Giovannoni in the paint for easy lay ups.
in instances there was absolutely no effort to put pressure on the players shooting from the perimeter or down town. with a defence like that , Iran would hardly administer any harm on easier teams like Tunisia. transition from offense to defence was quite good but once Brazilian's set offence started, Iran had lost their mobility. this immobility was more significant when Kardoust would have stepped in from the bench. although he has the size, he seriously lacks agility, which cannot be addressed right now unless his style of defence changed in a way that he could somehow put his body and size in use. maybe a mixture of Zone and man2man defence. Kardoust-Splitter one-on-one match up could have give him more options and presence in defence. despite above, it is not fair to single out Kardoust, as i believe it has more to do with coaching staff than the individual. individuals are responsible to train well and do what they are asked to do and be professional. not only Kardoust, but Hamed Haddadi, to some extent Arsalan Kazemi and Sahakian, and the rest of the team with the exception of Kamrani, Davari and Veissi need sprint training. something that NBA training manuals recommend in off-season programmes. compare Dwight Howard's transition speed and Haddadi's. i cannot accept when people say they are not comparable. Haddadi is playing in the same league and if wants to step in the court, he needs to up his game and he needs to work on it. he is not even as fast as Thabeet, with whom he competes for a sixth man position in Memphis.

Offense starts with transition, despite lack of size in Iran team, agility in transition and use of void spaces for open looks is missing in team Iran. it seems that there is a mind set that a set offense starts with opponent in position! there's no sign of early offense. San Antonio Spurs were the master of early offense and Greg Popovich had developed the tactic significantly. specially at the times when he had weapons and Sean Elliot, AJ, Doc Rivers, at times Michael Finely, Tim Duncan, even Admiral. it's not a fast break and it's not a set offense. it's an opportunity to caught he opponent off guard or at least make them run faster and harder during transitions, resulting in faster exhaustion of opponents. this is a knowledge that needs to be passed to players by coaches or if a team is lucky, players are keen enough to search for it and read about. hopefully they will employ that in their plays.
another issue that hurts team Iran is the ball handling in front court. i cannot accept that they lack the skills. Kamrani had shown many times that he is a capable ball handler, as well as all other players in front court. however, they somehow lose it when they are pressured or trapped. this could be fixed as it is a result of either wrong decision making at the time or bad call of plays. passing the ball is an asset not ot get into those situations.
Hamed Haddadi as the most efficient and top scorer simply did not receive enough balls, where Kamrani and Kazemi are responsible for 42% of the attempts (26 out of 62) they had only made 9, which is 34%. Haddadi and Sahakian had 20 attempts making 11 (55%). the statistics shows that at the times that specially Kamrani needed to be reminded by Coaching staff, that he needs to focus on calling right plays rather than trying to be the top scorer, they failed leading to a miserable night for him with only 4 assists and a 33% shooting, with some bad shot selections. Haddadi clearly had an advantage in the paint and whenever he had the ball, he was a threat.

in the meantime, Iran was out-rebounded by 7. this needs to be addressed. there is simply no excuse neither for Haddadi, nor for Sahakian, Kazemi and others to have let Giovannoni to register 4 offensive rebounds. that's already 4 second chance opportunities.
in play making Iran was also out played. 16 Assists of Brazil compared to 7 of Iran's. it is simply not enough.
TOs are quite close (14-17) and it could have at least been equal. there were silly mistakes in passing. simple passes were being mishandled which needs to be addressed.

all in all, it's been a good performance and i genuinely believe that this Iran team has much more to offer, if it is managed and guided properly and with a bit of courage. Iran needs composure in defense and more involvement of reliable Haddadi's offense.
in the end i would like to emphasize that all i care about is for Iranian team to play a better basketball, for i believe they can and i hope they will.

wise man said

a wise man once said:"Don't ask God to make your life easier, ask him to make you a stronger person!"
well if i were to ask from someone called god, i would have only asked him to give a fuck about what he had created!