Bologna –
With the conclusion of the regular season, Virtus Segafredo finds itself in the quarterfinals right Costa Masnaga, of which it had been victim in the championship at the beginning of the month. Due to the absence of Dojkic, Segafredo’s best scorer up to now, Tassinari and her teammates had to give up the pace, hindered and not at full strength.
Spreafico’s 17.6 average and M. Villa’s 15.8 oblige to keep the attention high. Burkholder’s growing harmony, moreover, adds danger to Limonta who is finding in the number 20 a good points tank: 10.9 in 6 games with just 22.8 average minutes of use.
Segafredo certainly has on its side a choral game that involves, and rewards, (17.2 assists on average against Costa Masnaga’s 15.3) but that must be able to produce concrete effects since in the last outings it traveled slightly below average. In fact, Limonta had had an easy life when he had the chance to play with the defense lined up showing the skill of his outside players, Jablonowski and Spreafico above all, who caused a lot of problems just in the one-on-one. Even the number of rebounds, 11.1 in the season, have been lower than their usual performances, also due to the lack of Dojkic who, with 2.5, is Segafredo’s best “pickpocket”, tied with Zandalasini. It will be fundamental to bring the opponents to have to keep up the pace of Segafredo, who has proven time and again to have few rivals when it comes to imprinting rhythm to the game and raising the revs, at will. The physical condition will be, if not crucial, a factor to take into account if you want to try to take advantage in this formula that does not allow for mistakes.
The winner of the first game will have a significant advantage, also by virtue of the basket difference: in fact, in Game 2, even in the event of a victory, the basket difference should be taken into account in order to avoid an overtime (should there be the same basket difference between the result of the first game and the return game) or an unfavorable result, even if by a few points.
