A “Sunday matinee” is scheduled for Olimpia at the Unipol Forum against Pistoia. After two road defeats, Olimpia needs to get back to winning in the Italian league, taking advantage of two consecutive home games (Cremona will be coming to Milan on Easter Friday). Olimpia currently occupies fifth place, tied with Trieste, with whom it has a favorable head-to-head situation. Trento precedes Milan by one win, three teams are two wins ahead. The standings are tight but the finish line is close, so to improve the standings, looking forward the playoffs, it is necessary to get as many wins as possible. In previous seasons, Olimpia has always improved once the European commitments were over and will try to take advantage of the recovery of some of the injured players in the coming weeks. Against Pistoia are still unavailable: Leandro Bolmaro, Fabien Causeur, Josh Nebo and Shavon Shields. Tip-off time is 13:00.

PISTOIA OUTLOOK – Pistoia has changed skin many times during the season. The current coach, Gasper Okorn, made his debut against Olimpia in the Pistoia game won by Milan a few months ago. The constant is the Italian backbone that includes Lorenzo Saccaggi (4.2 points per game, 36.7 percent three-point shooting), Gianluca Della Rosa (3.2 points on average, 35.2 percent from three) and power forward Gabriele Benetti (2.8 points and 2.3 rebounds per game). To this core, the guard Marco Ceron (4.5 points on average) was added during the season. The top foreigners are guard Michael Forrest (the all-time second-best scorer at Florida Atlantic) who is averaging 16.6 points per game on 42.7 percent three-point shooting (plus 3.6 assists on average), center Derek Cooke (6.3 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.5 offensive rebounds per game), a veteran of the Italian league, and Eric Paschall, who won the 2018 NCAA Tournament with Villanova and then played 158 NBA games between Golden State and Utah. He averages 10.3 points per game. The team’s second-best scorer, Maurice Kemp (15.3 points per game), is injured and will not be available in Milan, while Kadeem Allen will be there, returning after an injury (8.5 points per game), and the Hungarian with some G-League experience, Vincent Valerio-Boldon, a 2.06 mt power forward, will make his debut.