Olimpia’s week of passion continues at home, at the Unipol Forum, against Red Star Belgrade. After the big win in Istanbul, the hope was to extend the magical moment by beating Tortona in the Italian league, but instead a painful defeat materialized at the end of a strange game in which Olimpia went down by 25, and won the rest of the game by 21, to come only close to a comeback of enormous proportions. Mental and physical consistency in a period with so many games is almost impossible. Over the last weekend, eight EuroLeague teams lost in their domestic leagues to fresher teams. Not Red Star, however. They beat Spartak Subotica on the road with 30 points scored by Codi Miller-McIntyre, their hottest player. Olimpia also paid for the inability to rotate the entire roster given the unavailability of Diego Flaccadori and Stefano Tonut, along Josh Nebo and Leandro Bolmaro.
Red Star is a team with great depth, it can rotate six-seven perimeter players and play with different setups. It can count on three centers plus Bolomboy. The return of Filip Petrusev has given the team a deadly offensive weapon: he is scoring 15.6 points per game in just 19 minutes on the court. No one in the EuroLeague averages more points per minute played than him. Coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos’ Red Star is counting on a high-level defensive consistency: it demonstrated this by demolishing the best offense in the EuroLeague, Bayern Munich, in the last round. Now, it finds the second-best offense. Olimpia managed to hurt Fenerbahce: now they have another tough test to overcome. Red Star allows 80.8 points per game, fifth overall, thanks mostly to their perimeter defense which holds the opponent to 31.1 percent three-point shooting. It is a crucial aspect for this game: Olimpia overcame a defense equally effective in Istanbul, but now another one is coming up. On the contrary, Red Star is struggling inside where it allows the other teams to shoot 57.9 percent on two-pointers (it is just 16th in the entire competition). Offensively, it has a lot of shooters including Petrusev and converts at 38.8 percent clip from beyond the arc. Olimpia will have to defend strongly on the outside because the Serbian team has so many shooters capable of causing harm, starting with Isaiah Canaan, a veteran who comes off the bench but plays the minutes of a starter.
Olimpia has won the last three and five of the last six. It has put its record back in order, but to give meaning to what has been built in recent weeks, it needs to beat Red Star. Both with Maccabi and in Istanbul, Milan built the game over great offensive performances and was able to validate them by defending better when it was essential to do so to “close” the game. It will all be necessary even with Red Star, which has the same record as Milan, the same ambitions. Tip-off time in Unipol Forum will be at 20:30 on Wednesday.
THE REFEREES – Carlos Peruga (Spain), Olegs Latisevs (Latvia), Kristaps Konstantinovs (Latvia)
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “We face a very deep and well-organized team during a time of huge stress both physical and mental. In order to win, we will have to put on the court the best defense we can possibly play, especially against their pick and roll plays, and have a solid help by everybody, particularly in terms of attention to small and crucial detail.”
ZACH LEDAY – “Our daily goal has to be improving and raise the level of our game, try to have an impact regardless of situations and in my case of the position I play at, no matter next to which player. This is what I ask to myself and what I try to share with my teammates in a very long and demanding competition that you build game by game.”
RED STAR OUTLOOK – Red Star’s main characteristic is depth, so much so that the most used player, Nikola Kalinic, is on the court for 28 minutes per game, but only three players are averaging for more than twenty minutes: Kalinic, Codi Miller-McIntyre and Isaiah Canaan with the latter normally coming off the bench. Even Filip Petrusev, who came from Olympiacos during the current season, 29.0 points per game every 40 minutes on the court (the best in the EuroLeague), currently plays 19 minutes per game. The Bayern game, during the last round, was the first time he started since coming to Belgrade. The starting point guard is Codi Miller-McIntyre (8.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 5.8 assists on average), a player with notable physical size for his position who can help as a rebounder too. At the guard spot, Coach Sfairopoulos’ choice is Nemanja Nedovic (10.1 points per game in 18 minutes on the court; 59.1 percent shooting from two and 45.5 percent from three), even if he did not play the last game with Bayern, replaced by Ognjen Dobric (3.2 points per game, 44.4 percent on threes). The guard rotation is very deep and includes Yago Dos Santos (6.9 points and 2.7 assists per game), of course Isaiah Canaan (10.1 points per game, 40.1 percent three-point shooting), an explosive scorer who is usually on the court down the stretch, and Milos Teodosic (5.4 points and 2.8 assists in approximately 12 minutes on the court). Small forward Nikola Kalinic has started every game so far and has been Red Star’s most consistent player. He’s averaging 9.9 points per game but is shooting 62.2 percent from two and 50.0 percent on threes. A highly efficient player, he also contributes 4.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. The back-up is the Lithuanian Rokas Giedraitis (3.9 points on 37.5 percent shooting from three). Mike Daum has always started as a power forward: he averages 6.8 points, 65.7 percent on twos and 3.0 rebounds per game. Center Filip Petrusev returned to Red Star after a short NBA experience which then brought him back to Europe at Olympiacos. He also played at Gonzaga University, was MVP of the Adriatic League at Mega Belgrade, played for Efes and then returned to Red Star seven games ago. He is producing a 20.1 personal rating, 15.6 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, and shoots 66.0 percent from two and 46.2 percent from three-point territory. Luka Mitrovic (4.6 points, 58.1 percent on twos) and Uros Plavsic (5.3 points and 2.9 rebounds per game) take minutes at the center. The starting center at the beginning of the season was Joel Bolomboy who was playing at a very high level (12.5 points and 9.0 rebounds on average) before injuring his left knee, an injury that should be coming to an end now.
THE RED STAR CONNECTION – Nemanja Nedovic has played 32 games with 307 points scored for Olimpia over two EuroLeague seasons. During his time in Milan, Olimpia won one Supercup. Freddie Gillespie spent the second part of last season with Red Star.
MIROTIC NOTES – Nikola Mirotic has made at least one three in 18 of his last 20 games and just became the 18th player with more than 400 three-pointers for his career. With 22.1 on average, he is second overall in personal rating behind Olympiacos’ Sasha Vezenkov; with 17.5 points per game, he is the seventh-best scorer, and with 7.5 he is the best rebounder in the competition along Edy Tavares (Real Madrid). With an average of 5.5 defensive rebounds per game, he is leading the category. Mirotic has scored at least 20 points six times during the current season and 13 times during his Olimpia’s stay; he’s had at least five rebounds in each of the last seven games. Mirotic has had PIRs of 12 or more in 11 straight games. Mirotic is ranked ninth all-time in scoring with 3,759 points. Sergio Rodriguez is eighth with 3,772 points.
LEDAY NOTES – Zach LeDay, with 19.5 per game, is seventh overall in personal rating; with 15.6 points per game, he is the ninth-best overall scorer and is second in fouls drawn (6.3) behind TJ Shorts (Paris Basketball). Finally, with 58.8 percent he is first in three-point shooting. This season he has scored in double figures in 11 of 12 games. LeDay has had at least a 19 rating in each of his last six games. He is three rebounds shy of 800 for his career.
GAME NOTES – Olimpia is second in three-point shooting with 39.9 percent as a team. Only Asvel Villeurbanne is doing better. Behind Bayern, Olimpia is also second in points scored with 86.5 per game. Milan has allowed 9.3 offensive rebounds per game, which is the fewest in the league. Shavon Shields is 13 points away from 2,000 career points in the EuroLeague and nine two-pointers away from 500. Armoni Brooks has made at least 1 three-point shot in five straight and eight of his last nine games. Giampaolo Ricci ranks fourth in three-point accuracy at 52.4%.
Post your comment
Visualizza commenti