Trapani tries again. This evening at Pala Dozza, starting at 9pm, second chance available for coach Andrea Diana’s team to gain the pass to the upstairs.
Forty-eight hours later the Sharks return to the Piazzale Azzarita parquet in search of the third victory in the series which would close the issue and kick off a party awaited for 33 years.
“We had a bad approach at the start – said coach Diana at the end of the match – it took us a quarter to understand where we were and what type of game we had to play, too many hasty shots in the first seconds of the action”.
This is more or less the core of the match, combined with the great defense of Fortitudo, but this could not have been a surprise.
This is probably Trapani’s big advantage: the Sharks know exactly what type of match Caja’s team will play. Without Aradori, with Ogden once again in precarious conditions, Artiglio will be able, if possible, to further intensify the defensive phase, hoping to keep Trapani around 60 points again, hoping to find another performance above the top of Bolpin or whoever for him. The coach from Pavia doesn’t have many other chances and you don’t have to be a fortune teller to predict it.
“On Sunday we will have to play another superlative match – he said at the end of the match – I know the boys will do it, because they always have, we must try to gather some energy to have a little more quality in attack, even if objectively it’s not easy, but I can’t do anything other than praise my team for the game they played.”
On the other hand, Trapani knows exactly what NOT to do and that is exactly what the Granata coach declared immediately after the match. The Sharks are a shooting team. Apart from Horton, everyone is in a position to shoot and score from beyond the arc, so a massive use of this fundamental should not be shocking. The point, however, is that every shot must be constructed, an advantage must be created, the defense must be moved, the chances of success must be increased. What Trapani didn’t do in the match. Too many hasty shots, which then became transitions on which Bologna got to the point. As well as the first quarter given (again) to the opponents and the entire chase game. And maybe find JD Notae in playoff format and not the faded copy of last Friday.
But the series still remains firmly in the hands of the Sharks who are and remain masters of their own destiny.
Bologna always remains in the condition of being “all or nothing”. We are at the fourth match in eight days and Trapani always has a roster that is decidedly longer and qualitatively superior to that of Bologna, but this time it must be the Sharks who take the match where they want, and where Bologna will not be able to reach.
For Trapani, there will be the unknown Stefano Gentile: immediately injured in the match, he tried to return and then left before the break and never set foot on the parquet again. Unconfirmed rumors would have him regularly available, clearly not at his best (like Ogden), but available and, an element of his experience and charisma, always needed. But Trapani always has two other seniors who have recently no longer been used in the match: Rodriguez and Renzi. Andrea Diana will certainly evaluate all the options available to him, perhaps even alternating some visibly tarnished elements.
And then there will once again be the environmental factor: will Pala Dozza once again push its players to go beyond their limits? Or will the heroic grenade segment become part of an undertaking within an undertaking, accompanying the Sharks towards a dream 33 years away and of which many of them have only heard about it?
Meanwhile, for those who remained in the city, the giant screen in Piazza Municipio will be available once again.
Everything is ready again, let’s go get it.
