The grueling sequence set by the schedule will be completed in Dubai, where Olimpia will play for the first time in history against a very ambitious rookie team. After this penultimate game of the first half of the season, finally Olimpia will have time to get some rest for a few days. However, this game is really tough, after a six-hour flight and three time-zone away from home. Dubai is a dangerous team especially on its home court. Maybe because of the opponents’ travel schedule, as a fact, Dubai is 6-2 at home and maybe for the very same reason it is 2-7 on the road. It is a team that is used to play close games, for some reason. Before winning in Istanbul last week – a game that was solved in the end again – Dubai was coming off four straight games decided by a one or two points margin, with a 2-2 record. Clearly, the overall record could have been much better or much worse for the team. Olimpia is 7-3 over the last 10 games, a high-level pace (nobody won more over the same span), but lost at home with Fenerbahce in the last game. All the most recent games have been played with rotations set by who was out more than by Coach Poeta’s choices. It will be the same in Dubai: Olimpia won’t be able to get Leandro Bolmaro back but will have Nico Mannion along Lorenzo Brown to sustain Quinn Ellis at the point. It is a crucial spot because they will have to face one of the hottest players right now, McKinley Wright IV, coming from Buducnost, 100 points scored over the last five games, 13 assists over the last two, 38 trips to the free-throw line in five games. However, Dubai is a very deep team, leading the Adriatic League too. A portion of the game will be decided by three-point shooting: Dubai – who has experienced specialists as Klemen Prepelic and Davis Bertans, the young brother of Dairis Bertans, a former Olimpia player and has a long and productive NBA career in his resume – is only 20^th for three-point shooting, at 31.7 percent, and next to last at defending the three-point shooting, 39.3 percent, very close to what Olimpia is used to shoot at for the season. The Fenerbahce game – lost allowing 87 points – confirmed once more that Olimpia needs to get as close as possible to score 90 points or more to win, while shooting well from the arc. When it was able to di it – against Panathinaikos, against Real Madrid – won the game.

NOTE – Dubai-Olimpia Milano is scheduled to be played on December 23^rd at Coca Cola Arena in Dubai. Tip-off time is 17:00 Italian time.

REFEREES – Robert Lottermoser (Germany), Olegs Latisevs (Latvia), Huseyin Celik (Turkey).

COACH PEPPE POETA – “Dubai is going through a good stretch of games, won three of the last four games and has a lot of offensive potential and very versatile big men. For us, the kind of job we will be able to make over McKinley Wright, who’s their primary creative player, will be crucial along the ability to keep their talented scorers to go off too much.”

INJURY REPORT – Diego Flaccadori, Leandro Bolmaro, Stefano Tonut, Nate Sestina and Ousmane Diop are all not available and didn’t make the trip to Dubai. Nico Mannion – broken nose – will be available after returning to play wearing a protective mask last Saturday in the Italian game vs Cantù.

DUBAI BASKETBALL OUTLOOK – Coach by the former Slovenian international, Jurica Golemac, Dubai is heavily counting at the point guard position on a rookie who – a short period of adjustment – is playing at a very high level, McKinley Wright IV, who played 32 NBA games before coming to Buducnost and previously for four seasons at Colorado. Right now, he averages 12.4 points and 6.9 assists per game. His numbers, however, have been even better over the last month (he is also a 36 percent three-point shooting and is making 87.7 percent of his free throws). The starting off guard is the big-time scorer Dwayne Bacon, another former NBA player (207 games) who returned to the EuroLeague after a one-year hiatus: he is averaging 15.0 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. Wright is averaging around 30 minutes per game, Bacon over 29. The playing time is partially a consequence of injuries that kept many players out for some time: point guard Nate Mason is out for the season; the Australian guard Taran Armstrong (from Cairns) appeared in seven games only; the Serbian international Aleksa Avramovic has played only five games so far and the club responded signing Boogie Ellis, from Southern California, who has been available for five games. All of them could be on the team for the Olimpia game. Avramovic, when he was healthy, came off the bench averaging 9.6 points and 2.4 assists per game; Ellis generally started and responded by averaging 10.4 points per game, shooting 38.5 percent from three. The rotation includes Kosta Kondic (6.1 points per game) and the Slovenian sharpshooter Klemen Prepelic, a veteran who formerly played for Real Madrid (4.3 points and 2.7 assists per game). The starting small forward should have been the Bosnian Dzanan Musa, another former Real Madrid star, who helped the team win a EuroLeague championship. He began scoring 30 points over the first two games then was stopped by an injury. He should be able to return soon, though. Awudu Abass has defensive duty to perform over the 17.4 minutes he is staying on the court (seven starts). So far, he has 3.4 points per game on 62.5 percent two-point shooting. Justin Anderson, formerly with Valencia and Barcelona, is a very efficient forward who brings defense and physicality to the game. He is averaging 6.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game over 20.4 minutes spent on the court, shooting 63.0 percent on twos and 40.0 percent on threes. Nemanja Dangubic is another potentially rotation player.  Davis Bertans at the power forward position is a player with enormous experience and a lethal shot considering his size: he is in his second season in Dubai after a long and successful NBA career (475 games with three seasons spent in San Antonio and three more in Washington). At this time, he is averaging 9.1 points per game on 32.7 three-point shooting (he averages 3.0 rebounds per game, too). At the 4 spot, Matt Ryan was signed lately. He has played 82 games in the NBA and started the season with the New York Knicks. So far, he has played only one game in which he scored eight points in seven minutes. Serbian Filip Petrusev can play as a 4 and a 5: he is averaging 14.6 points per game on top of 5.7 rebounds while shooting 58.1 percent on twos, numbers good enough for being fifth in the index rating list. He is a dynamic, very skilled big man, riding a 22-game streak of scoring in double digit. At the center, Coach Golemac lost before the season started the veteran Mam Jaiteh and the club replaced him with another veteran, the Turkish Sertac Sanli (1.6 points and 1.2 rebounds per game), but there are no doubts that the starter is the former Venezia star, Mfiondu Kabengele, a powerful player who can mix strength and skills. In his first EuroLeague season, he is averaging 13.9 points per game on 64.7 percent two-points shooting (he can hit a three, too) and he is grabbing 5.8 rebounds a night (2.3 are offensive). The Bosnian Kenan Kamenjas (4.1 points and 2.7 rebounds per game) is his back-up but generally Golemac uses Petrusev as a preferred option at the 5.

THE DUBAI CONNECTION – Awudu Abass, in his second season in Dubai, played for Olimpia from 2016 to 2018 winning the Italian league title in 2018.

GAME NOTES – In the last game vs Fenerbahce, Marko Guduric played in his 300^th EuroLeague game. Zach LeDay has just become the fifth Olimpia player with at least 1.000 points scored in the EuroLeague. He is also four three-pointers away from 100 made for Olimpia. The next three-pointer will be the 100^th made by Armoni Brooks in the EuroLeague, all of them with Olimpia. He is second overall for threes made with 2.9 per game and he is riding a eight-game streak with multiple three-pointers.