By virtue of the current ranking situation, tomorrow’s derby, Sunday 5 May (6.15 pm), at the Fruit Village Arena PalaBarbuto, will not be a derby with great media attraction, because the stakes will only count for the statistics and nothing more. Ge. You. Napoli and Givova Scafati will meet in this last round of the regular season of the Serie A championship only for prestige and not for reasons dictated by the achievement of a very specific objective. Both clubs, in fact, have already been certain of remaining in the top flight (an objective set at the beginning of the season) for several weeks and both have recently found themselves one step away from the playoff zone, without however managing to place that leap necessary to gain qualification for the post season. Thus, when there are only 40 minutes to go until the end of the competitive season, the derby becomes the challenge that retains its charm only in relation to itself, because the final outcome and the two points up for grabs would not change the fate of either of the two contenders, who will therefore face each other only with the aim of saying goodbye with a good performance from both sets of fans. The Ge. You. Napoli will undoubtedly try to avenge the heavy defeat suffered in the first leg with reversed pitches, while Givova Scafati will instead want to try to reach 26 points and thus do better (in terms of points won) than last season in which the objective of salvation was achieved right in the last round. Furthermore, a victory for the traveling team would allow them to overtake their direct rival in the final standings, by virtue of the double comparison in their favour, albeit with equal points (26). Full lineup for coach Matteo Boniciolli, who for this last appearance will be able to use all the staff at his disposal.
THE OPPONENT Coach Igor Milicic will also be able to use all the men in his squad and therefore all his foreign players, who have so far proven to be among the most prolific in the entire category, as also demonstrated by the success in the Italian Cup: the American Pullen (guard averaging 14.7 points and 2.4 assists); the Croatian Zubcic (power forward averaging 14.4 points and 5.6 rebounds); the Canadian Ennis (playmaker averaging 13.9 points and 6.8 assists); the American Brown (guard with 12.3 points and 2.1 assists on average; the Polish Sokolowski (power forward with 12 points, 2.2 assists and 5.2 rebounds on average); the American Owens (center with 11.3 points and 7.2 rebounds on average). To these must be added a good Italian team made up of center Lever, point guard De Nicolao, forward Ebeling and center Mabor Dut Biar.
THE STATEMENTS The sporting director Nicola Egidio: «We are about to play the last day of a season which has seen us achieve a historic result, since for the first time in the history of the club, Scafati will take part in the Serie A championship for the third consecutive year, but with the awareness that we could have done something more. A somewhat unique derby as it doesn’t offer anything at stake for the ranking, but that doesn’t mean we’re deprived of motivation and stimulation. On the contrary, our desire is to make up for last Sunday’s bad performance, giving one last joy to the fans in what is still a race with particular emotional contours and trying to improve last year’s record. Napoli also didn’t have a good end to the season. They are coming off 10 defeats in the last 12 games, but they remain a team with high technical content, with several players capable of scoring and putting points on the scoreboard. They will undoubtedly want to finish well in front of their fans, we will have to be good at approaching the match well, making it clear straight away that we are mentally connected.”
