Milan, 25 May 2024 – He starts off on the right foot championship semi-final of theEA7 Emporio Armani Milano beat Germani Brescia 95-87 without difficulty at the Assago Forum. Test of great solidity from coach Messina’s men who, after closing at +12 a first half with 61 points scored with very high shooting percentages (57% from two and 50% from three) and a Johannes Voigtmann already had 19 points (he then finished with 21 points and also grabbed 8 rebounds)they tried several times for the decisive break, pushing up to +14, but they found Germani Brescia on their way who never let go of the match and, dragged by a Amedeo Della Valle tarantolato, author of 33 final points (3/4 from twos and 5/11 from threes for him), kept the games open until the final stages, when Flaccadori’s free throws put an end to the match, giving the red and whites the first point of a series that ends promises to be intense and hard-fought. Supporting Voigtmann at Olimpia were a solid Nicolò Melli in the fourth quarter (13 points and 6 rebounds), Stefano Tonut (12 points), Diego Flaccadori (11 points), Kyle Hines and Devon Hall (10 points each). In Germani’s ranks, however, in addition to the 33 points of the aforementioned Della Valle, at the end of the match there were 12 for CJ Massinburg (all scored in the first half), and 11 each for Kenny Gabriel and Miro Bilan.
The match report
Milan immediately tried to step on the accelerator pedal with 9 points scored in less than 4′ by Tonut who then passed the baton to Voigtmann, ice-cold from the arc. Brescia, however, had the merit of not getting upset and remaining in the wake of Della Valle’s flashes, but in the final quarter another seven points arrived from the pairing formed by Vogtmann-Hall and Milan broke through the 30-point barrier and closed the half with a five-point lead (34-29). Thanks to Melli and Mirotic, Olimpia then tried to push forward again in the second quarter, reaching a double-digit lead at 41-31. At that point, Massinburg took care of keeping Brescia in their wake, bringing his team up to -2 before yet another burst from Milan – by Voigtmann-Tonut – which extended the elastic lead up to +12 in the middle of the race (61-49). A match plot that effectively remained unchanged in the second half, in which Milan continued to dictate the pace of the match, trying to knock out their opponent but without succeeding: from -12, in fact, Germani entered the fourth quarter trailing only 7 points, and therefore tried to stay in the game with the contribution of Della Valle and the muscular and winning plays of Gabriel and Cobbins. The former Panathinaikos player himself, with a handful of seconds left, tenaciously grabbed an offensive rebound after an error on the line but failed to make a triple to make it -3. Not without difficulty Milan was therefore able to breathe and close the score with Flaccadori’s 2/2 on the line.
