Bologna –
EA7 Emporio Armani Milano vs Virtus Segafredo Bologna. Two-way ball tomorrow, Friday, June 9, 8:30 p.m., Mediolanum Forum in Assago (Mi).
Live:NOVE, Eurosport 2, Eleven Sports and Radio Nettuno Bologna Uno.
Referees: PATERNICO’, MAZZONI, BARTOLI.
Conference link.
These are the words of coach Sergio Scariolo in the pre-game press conference, “I think we have completed a good week of preparation, the players all arrive in decent physical and mental condition. On the other hand we face this final with great humility above all, those who have won so much in their lives, know that proclamations, arrogance and whistling in the woods are forms to hide inferiority complexes that we do not have. Conversely, we have a great respect for our opponent, we are aware that we start from behind, they are the champions, they are the front runners, they have the field factor we are chasing with the need to make the extra effort to catch up with them, to fight, to be up to the task, and it is up to us to show that we can fill this gap obviously with confidence that we can do it but also, I repeat, with awareness of the difficulty of the task. Clearly the goal is always to do everything that is in our hands, we know that we are facing a very strong opponent not only defensively but with great offensive potential, a great coach, great defenders, great organization so with a lot of humility, I repeat, but with a desire to fight and play for it. I said last time that we are serene because when you are the second team in the ranking your obligation is to get to the final and this we have accomplished: now we want to try, with all the energy, enthusiasm and desire in the world to make a good series.
They have been two good series, with some small moments of lesser efficiency, but clearly we are talking about completely different realities than the one we will find especially from the physical point of view and the habit of playing for this kind of goal: certainly the important and fundamental one is what we have not had all year, that is to have regained health and a good physical condition, I say good or at least fair with some exceptions but in short above sufficient in all the players present. That’s the one thing that makes the difference, at least compared to the recent past.
We are going to have a different opposition in all aspects, physical, tactical, of the experience of the players, so in the first two series we were the reference team now they are and we have to put them in the target and try to attack them from underneath, to put them back on, to be the ones running after the hare and, when we had health and the opportunity to train well by virtue of having a high number of healthy players, we always tried to play with speed and in a nice and quick way. However, we also have to be ready to play in the half-court because there will be half-court possessions and, above all, we have to be ready to defend for 24 seconds because Milan is a team that is very good at being patient and being able to find a good shot with brutal experience in all its players without doing stupid things before even getting, if necessary, in the last 3-4 seconds of the possession.
My Virtus? I said it’s finally the team, with all the problems we had, or the company for that matter, had to build it at the beginning of the year, then it was a continuous finding a difficult square both because of the original structure of the team and because of the chain of absences and injuries. Now we are, I think, we’ve made it through a few weeks at full strength and have been able to train and play according to what is our original idea.
There is no rematch when you find a stronger starting opponent, in season, specifically in the stronger series, in a better physical condition. These are words that can be used by those who are not used to winning but not winning by standing 150 meters from the field, but those of us who are in finals, those of us who are in training and in games, those of us who are playing world championships, European championships, those of us who are in this business we know that the motivation is to do the best you can and to try to win against an opponent who if he is stronger we will go and shake his hand because we know that we have, for now, fulfilled our duty: from now on it’s to give war to the opponent in front of you and to give our best to get close and be able to hang on, grab, something if they put it in our grasp.
Teodosic? Not in optimal condition but enough to allow him to play.
I’ve talked about differences in structure, between corporate philosophies, huge, differences in style of play, big, differences in the means at our disposal, I’ve already said it, everyone knows it, so I’ve said nothing but self-evident truths that only a blind man or one in bad faith cannot see. Since we are all sighted and in good faith here we are talking about platitudes. Sometimes they need to be reinforced because superficiality, coarseness, the desire to put titles, labels and clichés, leads to making big mix-ups and big lumping together of concepts that conversely in many cases are different.”
