Bologna –
Luca Banchi’s words at the end of the game with Maccabi: “A beautiful and important victory. We were solid and consistent for all 40′. Maccabi has enormous offensive talent, they showed it from the start. We were in contact in the first half, trying to contain them not always profitably, then we adjusted a few things, especially on offense, after the 10 losses in the first half. It’s not common in European basketball to see teams run from the basket right away. We were really solid, working on small details. In a game like that you have to stay focused, not get frantic, and in the end we were very smart to channel the game in our direction, in our territory. Compared to Barcelona we played the same kind of game, against very different opponents. And the team found within itself the resources to adjust things and find the flow that is most congenial to us.
Now we think about the next away game.”
Is there a new protagonist each time? “Taking care of possessions is crucial for us, we played a great defensive game even with 90 points conceded. Maccabi is a team strongly oriented to the offensive side, we tried to play the best game we could. There were many protagonists, more or less obvious, with many quintets and good defensive cooperation. Smith had a good game, as did many teammates. Then we are always in emergency, Bruno Mascolo was injured on Wednesday, today Jordan Mickey, by the way he and Shengelia had not practiced yesterday. We are dealing with urgency and emergency, problems that are inevitable when you play with this frequency, playing a lot and traveling a lot you accumulate fatigue on players’ heads and legs. It’s important to squeeze resources and energy from everyone.”
The soul of Virtus? It’s a team that tries to treasure the presence of so many experienced players, at every level, from the NBA to the Euroleague to the Italian league. And that they have a common experience, which gives advantages. My task was to normalize an environment that had experienced perhaps inappropriate summer stress, and to find a line to enhance the resources we have on the staff. And they are many: great champions, the structure of play left by the previous coach, the winning culture of the club. In a very long season let’s try to be as high-performing as possible, to get to be competitive on Sunday afternoon, in less than 48 hours.”
