Bologna –
At the end of the game against EA7 Emporio Armani Milano, valid for Round 22 of the LBA, these were the words of coach Luca Banchi: “I think it’s fair to congratulate both teams for a very hard-fought and vibrant game. Milan gave evidence of the moment it is going through, in spite of Shields’ absence it came to Bologna playing a game of great consistency and excellent preparation. We are two teams conditioned by the moment we are experiencing and the effort we are both trying to make to reach the Euroleague post-season. These championship games would deserve more time in terms of preparation and especially physical recovery for the protagonists on the court, I think that in these terms we have to read those too many errors that we produced in our third period and those 8 lost balls made the quality of our basketball expire that for the first 20 minutes and then in the final quarter had been excellent considering the type of opponent we had in front of us and its aggressiveness on the court. We clung to our defense, we were continuous, that continuity we were going to claim even after the scorching defeat in Piraeus. Tonight we responded collectively, a very good choral performance with 11 players lined up, 10 on the scoreboard, 5 in double figures and one with 8 points, with a good quality of shots built testifying to the 50% from the arc that playing against a team like Milan becomes decisive because the spaces to operate are minimal and it is essential to move the ball with a good selection of conclusions. We have a very tough month of March ahead of us, April no less, hopefully we will have a great month of May and June. We go by the day and try to get the best out of it, squeeze as much as possible out of this group but it is obvious that a season of this type involves downturns in terms of performance and condition, a situation that everyone is experiencing with different timing, no one is immune and the history of the Euroleague tells, just look at the last 3 years with this format what peaks exist within the same games.”
On the starting five: “There was a willingness to look for this type of rotation, which I think in the first 10 to 15 minutes paid good dividends. We then had a moment of downturn in the closing 2Q, we gave the feeling of losing a little bit of our rhythm on offense. If there is a note to be made, it is that many of those 8 lost balls were a little bit trivial, not necessarily all produced by Milan’s aggressiveness. That would have allowed us to keep Milan even more at a distance, which with the 3-point shooting they have and the moment they are experiencing where there are players who raise their hands and score from any distance, some coming off stray balls, gives testimony to the level of confidence they are experiencing and otherwise the 7 consecutive wins in the league and this moment in the Euroleague that makes them very possible candidates for the post-season would not have been explained.”
On the positive difference in rebounding: “Their longs have an atypical game that often leads them to play away from the 3-point arc, this also involved our guards in the rebounding work. It was vital data to allow us to materialize the work and defensive sacrifice we did. I don’t think that despite the absence of Shields they lost dangerousness, they offered quintets that were very difficult to contain, playing with 3 creators at the same time, players all able to beat their opponent 1-on-1, to use the pick and roll, longs always ready to alternate inside and outside play and quintets with Ricci as a 3. To each type of quintet we always responded credibly and in rebounding we did an excellent job.”
