The regular season last home game is a clash at the top of the standings, a game which will inevitably change the outlook of the playoffs’ seeding. Germani Brescia comes to the Forum sharing the first place in the standings with Olimpia and Virtus Bologna. In the last round, Brescia will host Brindisi and Olimpia will play on the road, in Cremona. By winning this game, the chances of finishing at the top would remain alive, but only if in the meantime Virtus Bologna will lose a game (they play in Tortona and ends the season at home with Trento). In other words, it’s a game that looks a lot like an early start to the playoffs.
Olimpia gets to this game well in the sense that over the second half of the season, it was the Italian league best team with a 11-2 record. However, the team is still plagued by injuries to Maodo Lo and Nikola Mirotic. Devon Hall will return but with minutes restrictions. Brescia, coming off the Cremona loss, should be at full strength. John Petrucelli has not been available in the last couple of games but should be on the court on Sunday. Coach Alessandro Magro uses a remarkable ten player-rotation and doesn’t have the weight of a European season behind his team. There is a high level of familiarity on a Brescia team with a strong core. It is also possible that the two teams will soon run into each other in the playoffs, in the same half of the bracket. So, a semifinal series is potentially looming.
Brescia is an experienced team with a deep-rooted core of players that includes Della Valle, Petrucelli, Gabriel and Cobbins, all of whom have been under the wing of Alessandro Magro for at least three years. The only newcomers at the start of the season were Miro Bilan, Jason Burnell and Semaj Christon, but they have been in Italy for many years. “They have been able to create problems every time we play them – assistant coach Mario Fioretti – They have the most regular team this season.”
Semaj Christon, a point guard coming from Tortona, a former NBA player (Oklahoma City), and Amedeo Della Valle, a former MVP winner, are the two guards in the line-up. Christon is averaging 11.3 points per game and dishing out 4.4 assists per game. Della Valle averages 12.8 points per game on 40.6 percent three-point shooting and 91.9 percent from the foul line. The third guard CJ Massinburg comes off the bench but averages 13.0 points, while shooting 45.7 percent from three and 58.4 percent from two. The fourth guard is David Cournooh (6.0 points per game, 41.0 percent from three). The starting small forward is usually the Italian international John Petrucelli (9.6 points and 3.5 rebounds per game), a defensive specialist who can hit threes and score on the break. Having not played the last few games in the starting five, he was replaced by veteran Jason Burnell (8.5 points and 4.1 rebounds on average), a very physical low post player (59.6 percent from two).
The power forwards are Kenny Gabriel, another veteran, averaging 7.6 points and 3.6 rebounds per game, dangerous as a shooter, and Nicola Akele (4.3 points and 2.2 rebounds on average). The center is the former Sassari low-post menace Miro Bilan, who is also increasingly effective in shooting from outside and can use the floater. Bilan averages 13.0 points per game on 60.8 percent shooting (8.8 attempts) to which he adds 8.3 rebounds per game, 3.0 are offensive rebounds. He is the key player in the half court offense. His back-up is Michael Cobbins (4.5 points and 3.7 rebounds per game).
“We will need to be good at protecting the paint against their physicality while keeping the attention up against their many good guards. Offensively, we need to stay solid, because they are a physical defensive team but they want ot be tactics, as well,” Fioretti said.
Tip-off time will be at 18:15 on Sunday.
