Messina: Red Star is talented and aggressive; defense and moving the ball essential

Olimpia takes the EuroLeague court again, in the second "double round" week of the season, the first to be entirely played in the Mediolanum Forum. Wednesday 18 November, at 8.45 pm, Olimpia starts facing the Red Star Belgrade. The Serbian team has just returned from a week in which it first won in Villeurbanne and then lost at home to Real Madrid, after leading the entire first half. Milan, after a week of virtual inactivity, returned to the court last Sunday in Desio and is now preparing for a period overloaded with games. The game marks Kevin Punter’s EuroLeague season debut, exactly against his former team. Olimpia will be without Gigi Datome, who’s injured. Both teams are undefeated so far in their respective leagues. Last Sunday, Red Star prevailed over Split in a close game, won by a two-point margin.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – "We face a Red Star team with a lot of offensive talent and enough athleticism to be very aggressive at the defensive of the floor, a classic trait of Coach Obradovic teams. A good ball circulation and an effective transition defense to force them in half-court sets will be two potentially crucial factors in order to try to win the game. We’ll miss Gigi Datome unfortunately, but we’ll have back for a few minutes Delaney, Punter and Moraschini who are all available, but obviously far from having a good athletic condition."

KEVIN PUNTER – "It’s great to be back on track, to play a EuroLeague after a long time. To get back on the court against my former team is a little weird. We need to play hard on defense, and to compete with great intensity for the entire 40 minutes. Every EuroLeague game is important and difficult, obviously we want to win and we are prepared to face a tough battle."

THE REFEREES – Matej Boltauzer (Slovenia), Joseph Bissang (France), Petri Mantyla (Finland).

THE RED STAR BELGRADE – In his second European season, Jordan Loyd, a guard with some NBA experience in Toronto, is the competition leading scorer, averaging 21.6 points per game. In seven out of eight games he has scored at least 15 points. He takes over seven threes per game converting 32.8 percent of them, but he also goes to the line very often. He currently has made 44 out of 45 attempts from the line. Point guard Corey Walden, who last year played for Partizan, is averaging 12.5 points per game, but he’s shooting 42.9 percent from three-point range and is riding a streak of six straight games in double figures. The other point-man, Langston Hall, who spent the last few seasons in Patras in Greece after playing in Italy in Pistoia and Cantù, is leading the team in assists with 4.5 per game. The best rebounder (5.7 per game, but he is also scoring 12.7 points per game) is Johnny O’Bryant, formerly of Maccabi, a big man signed a few weeks ago. At center, coach Sasa Obradovic counts on Emmanuel Terry, Duop Reath and, mostly as a starter, on Ognjen Kuzmic, a former NBA and Real Madrid player. On the perimeter, the most experienced players are Branko Lazic, a surly defender, and Marko Simonovic, who returned this year after a stint at Lokomotiv Kuban. However, Dejan Davidovac and Marko Jagodic-Kuridza also have significant playing time. The very experienced veteran Taylor Rochestie has also recently joined the team to increase depth at the point-guard spot.

THE RED STAR CONNECTION – Vlado Micov played in the Red Star youth teams, but never in the first team. Kevin Punter played 12 EuroLeague games with the Red Star last year, scoring 191 points (15.9 per game).

NOTES – Vlado Micov has an open streak of eight double-digit games and at least a made three. He has made at least 1 three-point shot in eight straight and 12 of his last 13 games. Sergio Rodriguez made his last 12 free-throw attempts. He has made at least 1 three-pointer in 17 of his last 18 games. Kevin Punter has made at least 1 three-pointer in 12 straight games; he’s made multiple threes in eight of his last nine games. Michael Roll is third in the league in three-point accuracy this season at 60.0%. Kyle Hines needs 7 points to reach 2,500 for his career. He ranks 16th all-time with 2,493. Dimitris Diamantidis is 15th with 2,495 and Mike Batiste is 14th with 2496.