The most famous “Dive” in the history of Olimpia Milan is the one with which Bob McAdoo, in game 5 of the 1989 championship final in Livorno, eliminated two easy points for Alberto Tonut – the father of Stefano Tonut, of Reyer Venezia – with a gesture of instinct, heart, sacrifice. This year in the EuroLeague, Riccardo Moraschini imitated McAdoo with a very similar gesture: obviously the importance of the two games is not comparable, however Moraschini in Berlin produced an incredible defensive play. Coach Ettore Messina compared the gesture to those typical of former great Olimpia legend Roberto Premier, who never hesitated to dive to get on a ball. But Moraschini’s gesture is not only about desire and pride.
The play starts with Niels Giffey who drives through Andrea Cinciarini getting into a crowded area. Four Alba players are on one side, only Peyton Siva is on the weak side, the one manned by Riccardo Moraschini. In essence the “spacing” is lacking: eight players are in the zone. Giffey goes straight into Nemanja Nedovic who stops the ball. Giffey finds Kenneth Ogbe in the corner, so Kaleb Tarczewski “leaves” the paints and moves to cover the open man. Ogbe’s reading is excellent: he beats the “closeout” to pass the ball to Thiemann inside. He’s all alone.
Moraschini reads the whole situation sensationally: this is the underestimated aspect of this play. Watching the video you can see that: on Giffey’s dribble, he is staying in the middle of the area, in case the opponent elects to drive with his left hand; when Giffey moves to the right, Moraschini returns towards Peyton Siva, ready to contest that shot; when Siva is ignored and ceases to be a danger he returns to the middle and when the pass for Thiemann takes place he has already understood everything so he moves with quickness and determination towards his opponent. At that point he passes in front of him and deflects the ball with his left hand. Finally, he also manages to perfect the steal by directing the deflection, before falling out of the baseline, towards Tarczewski.
