By Marti Artigas

 

Almost 30 years after David Cronenberg directed "The dead zone", based in the book written by Stephen King, in the Zalgirio Arena of Kaunas (Lithuania) there are many teams that are dying after trying to reach the shore without a prize. They don't know how to attack it. Is very difficult to find pure shooters in any competitions, and in a World Championship like this one, also. The best U17 players have a really interesting upside, but most of them many problems to score behind the arc. Today I've seen teams struggling against this weapon, and in some games doing it both at the same time. Is this the way to show our prospects to become the best players as possible? I've been watching top level games without top level shooters. And if you don't know how to attack the different zones without having a help from outside you get killed.

 

Who are the best three points shooters at this point? USA (36%), China (34%), Korea (32%) and Lithuania (31%). The rest, under 30%. In the first game of the day Spain, after a bad start, decided to make a zone defense. And they defeated Canada easy. In the last contest of the journey France tried to battle against americans with it, but they couldn't. During the day I've seen a Australia-Egypt fight with some minutes defending zone both at the same time, while I also checked how lithuanians tried in the first half to defend Mario Hezonja ('95) with a box-and-one. I know, this is different. But is also a zone.

 

Find attached some of the best tournament scorers with problems to score behind the arc: Dante Exum ('95, Australia) 17%, Hoon Heo (Korea, '95) 29%, Edvinas Seskus ('95, Lithuania) -at the pic- 27% or Martin Peterka ('95, Czech Republic) 7%. 

 

Twitter of the author: @marti_artigas

 

Photo: FIBA.COM