Another week with three games for Olimpia, in a never-ending roller-coaster, is starting. Milan faces Alba Berlin on Tuesday coming from three consecutive wins between the Italian league and the EuroLeague. This is the second consecutive EuroLeague home game after three road games. Olimpia will also be in Barcelona on Friday. Alba’s got seven wins so far and has lost the last two games, but during the last round it was defeated by Fenerbahce by four and led for most of the game. Alba has won three times on the road, two in Athens and one in Belgrade, and lost to Fenerbahce in Istanbul after two overtimes. It is a team with great offensive potential, capable to average 83.9 points per game and to shoot 38.6% from three-point range, exactly like the Olimpia, thanks to the presence of several shooting specialists led by the Swedish Marcus Eriksson, the American point-guard Makai Mason and obviously Rokas Giedraitis, the team top scorer with 13.5 points per game.
OLIMPIA – Against the Alba shooters, the defense will be crucial. Olimpia allows the opponents to shoot 34.6% from three-point range, third overall in the EuroLeague, and with the defense it overturned the last game against Bayern Munich. Coach Messina, however, will not have power forward Jeff Brooks again. The absence has forced him to find new solutions at the 4-spot in which Vlado Micov played a lot against Bayern. Obviously, Riccardo Moraschini will not be available either, while Andrea Cinciarini – stopped last week, but used in Brindisi – will continue the recovery work from the left calf injury that still annoys him and will not be used against Alba. Paul Biligha, because of some minor problems with his right thigh, is doubtful. Arturas Gudaitis and Amedeo Della Valle, who had flu-like symptoms in the last few days, practiced on Monday and will be available. Drew Crawford, who made his debut against Bayern last week, will play his second EuroLeague game.
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “Alba is a team that plays with great energy and physicality, and like all the teams coached by Coach Aito has a beautiful organization of movement offensively, and it is also one of the teams that take more three-point shots in the Euroleague. We will have to have offensive balance in order to recover fast and limit the number of open threes that Alba will take. We know how important this game is for us, so we will have to approach it with mental aggressiveness right from the start”.
THE LAST TIME WE MET… – Olimpia won 81-78 in Berlin with 17 points from Sergio Rodriguez. Olimpia started better, leading 7-0, but Alba with an array of threes had taken control of the game early and kept it for most of the third quarter. At that moment, Milan exploded with a 13-1 run, including four threes. Nemanja Nedovic was decisive with four three-point field goals in the second half alone. Olimpia scored 55 points in the second half. Giedraitis led Alba with 20 points for the night.
THE OPPONENT – Small forward Rokas Giedraitis (13.5 points per game) is not just a scorer-shooter, because he’s also third in the league for steals. The Lithuanian is in his second season in Berlin, the first in the EuroLeague. Luke Sikma, in his third season in Berlin, was the EuroCup MVP last year, and he is the team best rebounder with 6.1 per game. Sikma is the only player that the highly experienced coach Aito Garcia Reneses has always started. Sikma is a power forward who also averages 4.1 assists per game, third-best in the team after the two point guards Peyton Siva (5.1) and the Icelander (though raised at Long Island University in America) Martin Hermannsson (4.8, and also a 10.2-point per game scorer). The Swede Marcus Eriksson didn’t play in Berlin, but he is well known in Milan because last year he set his career high of 28 points against Olimpia while playing for Gran Canaria, when he also made the three at the end that forced the overtime. In addition to Sikma, among the big men, there’s Tyler Cavanaugh, who, after 10 games of absence due to injury, has been back since for a month and a half and he also is shooting over 40% from three, and Landry Nnoko, a Cameroonian who attended Clemson, back from three straight double-digit games. Forward Niels Giffey has made 50% of his threes so far and the American point-guard Makai Mason is a 43.3% three-point shooter too.
THE REFEREES – Damir Javor (Croatia), Seffi Shemmesh (Israel), Josif Radojkovic (Croatia).
THE ALBA CONNECTION – Marcus Eriksson last year when he was in Gran Canaria scored 28 points against Olimpia, setting a career record in the game won by Milan on the road. Rokas Giedraitis and Arturas Gudaitis played together in Vilnius.
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