A sold-out crowd to face Barcelona in Milan, coach Messina: We have to be aggressive and humble

Barcelona has won its first six regular season games before losing the seventh in Tel Aviv. Olimpia’s won the first five before falling in Munich and resuming its winning journey against the Red Star. The result is that Olimpia-Barcelona, on, Thursday night, November 4th, at the Mediolanum Forum, is not just a rematch of last year’s semifinal game, but above all it features the top two teams in the standings against each other. Incredibly, in addition to the same 6-1 record, they also have the same points differential of +51. Barcelona has got the most productive offense in the EuroLeague, first in free throws accuracy and second in three-point shooting. Milan is the team against which it is more difficult to score from two (the only one together with Zenit to hold the opponents under 50 percent) and is third to defend the three-point shot, moreover it is the team against which fewer assists are dished, a sure sign that the ball circulation and transition offense against Milan are not easy to come. But Olimpia also has the third-best offense, it is fifth in three-point shooting, while making the highest number of threes per game (9.7), and third for fewer turnovers committed. Olimpia’s won its games thanks to a collective effort so far: no Olimpia player has ever scored 20 points in a single game and the top scorer is Shavon Shields, who is averaging under 13 points per game. Barcelona is a little different: Nikola Mirotic, MVP of the month, is second in individual rating and is the sixth-best scorer. Nick Calathes is first for assists, he has never shot so well from three and despite being a point guard he is the team best rebounder. Olimpia will be without Malcolm Delaney and Riccardo Moraschini. Barcelona has been without Alex Abrines since the start of the season.

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COACH ETTORE MESSINA– "We’ll face a very strong opponent, a team well organized by Coach Jasikevicius. Barcelona is a very deep team, who can use a lot patience while incessantly attacking with Calathes and Higgins ability in running the pick and roll, or with the low post game of Mirotic and Davies mostly. We have to use this game to understand where and how to improve ourselves, but with aggressiveness while staying humble at the same time."

SERGIO RODRIGUEZ – "This is an important game for us, because last season we couldn’t beat them, we lost three times, but now we have our people behind us in Milan and this is a great opportunity to understand where we are as a team against a top contender."

THE REFEREES – Ilija Belosevic (Serbia), Milan Nedovic (Slovenia), Tomasz Trawicki (Poland)

BARCELONA – Back to the Final Four for the first time since 2014 when they lost the semi-final with Real Madrid here in Milano, Barcelona is experiencing Year Two of the Coach Saras Jasikevicius, a former legendary Barca player, era. All the most important players have remained since the past season: Nick Calathes at the point, the guard Cory Higgins, the lethal shooter Kyle Kuric, Nikola Mirotic, the shooting center Brandon Davies, as well as Pierre Oriola, Rolands Smits, Alex Abrines (out due to injury) and Sergi Martinez. There are four newcomers: Rokas Jokubaitis, a Lithuanian young guard, who came from Zalgiris along forward Nigel Hayes; from Real Madrid came Argentine point-guard Nicolas Laprovittola and finally from Efes they signed the Turkish center Sertac Sanli.

THE BARCELONA CONNECTION – Malcolm Delaney played for Barcelona during the 2019/20 season, with 26 appearances in the EuroLeague and 266 points scored. He will not be available due to injury. Cory Higgins won the EuroLeague championship along Sergio Rodriguez and Kyle Hines at CSKA Moscow in 2019. Nikola Mirotic played along Sergio Rodriguez at Real Madrid. During the 2010/11 season both were coached by Ettore Messina. Dinos Mitoglou played for Panathinaikos next to Nick Calathes.

GAME NOTES – Kyle Hines is fifth overall in total rebounds, he is the first American in the list and also the fifth man to have exceeded 1,500 career rebounds. It happened in the game against Red Star, last week. Kaleb Tarczewski became the first ever in Olimpia EuroLeague history for two-point field goals, bypassing Vlado Micov. Now he has 283 against 281. Nicolò Melli has exceeded 1,000 career rebounds in Munich: he was the 20th player in history to reach this milestone and is now the 19th-best rebounder ever. Meanwhile, he also surpassed 300 rebounds while playing for Olimpia overtaking Vlado Micov in the all-time list. Shavon Shields has scored at least one threes in 11 of the last 12 games that he played.