In the Scudetto playoffs, a situation of perfect equality in the two semi-final series after the first 4 games, 2-2 both between Milan and Venice, and between Reggio Emilia and Avellino, with the latter already taking to the parquet tonight for the fifth act, while tomorrow Olimpia and Reyer will compete again at the Forum.
Same situation of equality, but different approach to the next fifth episode for the four contenders, with the big favorite, Milan, which after seeing the bankruptcy one step away for the umpteenth time, has managed to put things back in its own direction, and consequently Venice, which has tasted the possibility of the sensational undertaking, it remains to be seen whether it will still have the strength to attempt a new trip. On the other hand, what should have been the other designated finalist, Reggio Emilia, after having swept away Sassari and after winning the first two home matches by authority, was overwhelmed by Avellino in the following two games and will now have to face , with many less certainties, a very delicate match 5 at home, where he will receive a team that will arrive with a completely different confidence and enthusiasm.
Emilians and Irpinia who return to challenge each other tonight at 20.45, the series, in which the field factor has always been respected so far, moves again to the PalaBigi, where Grissin Bon has a much better performance and where she can rely on the warmth of her audience to stop the inertia that at this moment seems to be hanging over the green-and-whites. It's true that in the playoffs each match makes its own story and you always start from scratch, but the 43 points difference from the last match (97-54) could still be felt at the start, a beating that saw Reggio's worst performance Emilia throughout the season and the landlords literally unleashed, after the +14 also in match-3. Grissin Bon who, however, as mentioned, becomes a completely different team at home and in an instant is capable of putting this series back on the track most suited to it, but if he really wants to try to win this championship he will have to be able to show another face even away. Meanwhile, tonight he has the chance to bring this semifinal back on his side, it will once again be the Italian group, Aradori and Della Valle first, on the one hand, the enormous offensive talent of Nunnally, with the support of Ragland and a Buva, the Croatian center, top scorer of the last three matches (20 points per game), on the other. In any case, the appointment will then be on Saturday, when we will move back to Campania for race-6.
Tomorrow evening, again at 20.45, the fifth act between Milan and Venice is scheduled, with the Assago Forum which will be available to the red and white club for the first time since the start of these playoffs. A series, on paper with a foregone conclusion, which instead immediately gave emotions, with Reyer's coup in Desio, then equalized by Olimpia's prompt response in the following match, but once in the lagoon, Venice extended again, making game 3 clearly hers, before the new draw in Milan, which in the last game, and already with its backs to the wall, managed to assert the strength of its roster (25 points from Simon) and to re-establish the field factor.
Now EA7, after the big scare, has its destiny in its own hands again, with the possibility of taking the lead for the first time and with the eventual game 7 always to be played in front of its own fans. But when it comes to Milan you always have to be careful because even this season, despite the arrival of more "reliable" players like Simon, Kalnietis (negative in recent outings) or McLean, he has shown moments of absolute darkness and almost inexplicable, things that you cannot afford against an opponent like this Venice, capable of replacing in extremis before these playoffs crucial players such as Goss, Owens and Peric, all knocked out by injury, with the additions of Pargo, Ejim and Krubally, and who however it turns out, it already deserves only applause and congratulations from now on.
Reyer who already in the first round had been the only team capable of subverting the home factor against Cremona, and also in these first four matches with Milan (apart from the first half of game-2), two of which were end, has shown that he can compete on par with his owners, driven by the plays of the various Pargo, Green and Bramos, but in the long run, as we saw in the last match, tiredness can make itself felt and the depth and quality of the bench of EA7 is decisive.
Longer and more talented roster, Milan's strong point, but a factor that had sparked many criticisms of coach Repesa, accused, probably with good reason, of not being able to fully exploit him, with illogical, or in any case bizarre, choices. and the lack of a real starting quintet. In fact, he did not convince anyone, as regards the turnover regarding the number of foreigners who can be called up for each game (the ones excluded each time should be two, but with Barac now out of every rotation, the choice is reduced to one), having made unless in the delicate game-3 (later lost) of someone like Sanders (now in doubt for tomorrow evening, due to an ankle problem), often the best scorer of his team and in any case the last one one would like to give up (like McLean , not called up in match-1). Keeping out a potentially devastating attacker, perhaps not to give up Jenkins, until 2013 Curry's reserve (!) in the NBA and arrived in the summer from Red Star as one of the best defenders around, but who often throughout the season found with three fouls charged after a quarter and a half of the game and with too many games closed with 2 or 4 points on the scoresheet (and when it goes well you barely exceed double figures).
Having said that even with him on the field it's not that Olimpia's defense becomes impenetrable (as seen in these matches against Venice) and that the good Bruno Cerella is enough and more for that task, EA7 has complicated life not only for Repesa's choices, such as Gentile who started from the bench in game-3 and after author of one of his worst performances with this shirt, but also due to a too soft attitude of his strongest players, for whom it seems that too little is enough to lose confidence , pace, ideas and start playing alone, and badly. It starts again from 2-2, as in the other series, the most announced final Milan-Reggio Emilia can therefore materialize, but beware of Venice and Avellino, the real protagonists of these exciting and uncertain semi-finals.
