The championship series number 20 in Olimpia history will start on Wednesday night in Bologna, right where the team has played five times over the course of the season, against three different teams and with three wins. The championships series is scheduled to be played at the best-of-seven with the first two games on the road. The two teams facing each other are the same that reached the stage last season, that finished first and second in the regular season, both are 6-0 in the playoffs and 19-0 at home in the Italian League. Olimpia has qualified for every Italian final this season, Virtus was eliminated in the Italian Cup at an earlier stage. Three times, they played each other during the season, but the first was in September for the Supercup trophy, a long time ago, while the regular seasons clashes were heavily affected by absences. Just as an example, in the last game, in Bologna, Olimpia didn’t have Rodriguez, Shields and Datome, Virtus didn’t have Belinelli. Ironicallly, over the length of the season, Virtus showed the best offensive numbers while Milano showed the best defensive numbers. But during the playoffs, things have changed. Milano is averaging almost 90 points per game and its accuracy have improved both from two and three-point range. Five times out of six, Olimpia made at least 10 threes in a single game. Virtus has shot well with the guards (Teodosic and Belinelli averaged almost 12 three-point attempts per game), relying inside on Mam Jaiteh and Toko Shengelia. The French national has been particularly effective in all the three games played against Bologna, scoring 18 points in each one of them. Olimpia, as of now, has played 78 official games so far. Game 1 will be number 79.
GAME 1 REFEREES – Boris Ryzhyk, Roberto Begnis, Tolga Sahin.
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “It is going to be hopefully a close series, hopefully it will be hard for both teams, hopefully we’ll play well. With both arenas full it will be great for Italian basketball, in terms of image, audiences, the number of followers. We are fine physically, during the playoffs we had more time to prepare, we simplified some things and we are executing at a different pace. That helped us to improve our offensive numbers. In Milan the expectations are always high, what is important is that our players will go out there aware that by doing our things well we’ll increase our chances and vice versa.”
GIGI DATOME – “I’m anticipating a hard-fought series, I can’t predict how much the home court will affect the outcome, I’m very excited to be here, along my teammates. We worked all year long to get the chance to play the championship series and now we are just happy to enjoy the opportunity. During the playoffs, we have had more time to prepare and we have been good at increasing the tempo offensively and we executed the plays with more confidence.”
SERGIO RODRIGUEZ – “We are in a little bit different situation compared to last season, we come off a very good EuroLeague season, we finished third which is not easy at all, considering the teams that we faced, and were eliminated by the eventual winners during a series we struggled with some injuries. Virtus is different too and added two great players like Hackett and Shengelia. We know, as players, our roles on the team, we are ready and now we’ll try to play two good games in Bologna before getting the support of our great fans in the following two.”
