Cordinier – rating 7 – (13 points, 4/6, 1/5, 2/2) – rested in the Super Cup, looks sharp. The long-range shot is not the house’s specialty, but it is useful with points and even 5 assists.
Belinelli – rating 7.5 – (15 points, 3/3, 3/5, 0/1) – the captain scores the first points of the Virtus championship. For the umpteenth time, despite his age, he is the top scorer from Virtus, shooting with excellent percentages. Beli, tell us how time passes.
Pajola – rating 6.5 – (6 points, 2/2, 0/2, 2/2) – very negative for three quarters of the match then, but in the final he is the one who scores the last four decisive points which are worth the first victory of the season of Segafredo.
Clyburn – rating 5.5 – (8 points, 3/4, 0/5, 2/2) – He fires three-point blanks and more generally never gives the impression of biting into the match.
Hackett – NG rating – only three minutes on the pitch.
Grazulis – NG rating – (2 points, 1/2, 0/1, -) – tastes the parquet again, this is enough for the moment.
Morgan – rating 6.5 – (11 points, 0/3, 2/4, 5/6) – confirms himself as a thoroughbred attacker who has his first option in shooting. Good at winning trips to the line when the Juventus attack was swamped.
Polonara – rating 6.5 – (7 points, 1/1, 1/3, 2/2) – starts very strongly in the first quarter, then drops, but in the final part of the game she sacrifices herself constructively by playing as a fake centre.
Diouf – rating 5 – (2 points, 1/1, -, -) – lots of naivety and inexperience.
Zizic – rating 6.5 – (11 points, 4/5, -, 1/2) – double double with 11 points and 11 rebounds, yet Banchi doesn’t trust him in the final stages of the game. Reason? Its progressive decline in intensity.
Akele – rating 7 – (5 points, 1/1, 1/1, -) – here’s the surprise you don’t expect. Lots of energy, defense and that basket that gave Virtus their momentum again in the final corners of the match.
Tucker – rating 6 – (9pts, 1/2, 2/3, 1/2) – tries to make himself dangerous in many different ways. It’s not easy for him to get used to the new situation which doesn’t see him being the main option in attack, but he is working hard to adapt to the new role.
Banks – Very important victory, also for the way in which it arrived. 15′ of great quality in the first half and a few too many errors which gave confidence and inertia to a very good Trapani team. But we showed that we have a lot of strength, in the way we won it. Now we hope to recover everyone, it will be a long season, a long journey, and in every game we will have to be able to find a way to play our basketball. It’s not a duopoly, last year we won the regular season with 8 defeats: those who play in Europe spend a lot on travel, injuries, and a team like Trapani is already ready to try. However, it was a good week of work, we managed to give training sessions to Cordinier and Grazulis who is still very far from being in good condition: many reasons to take what we were given, now some new arrivals will have to hurry to find harmony with your teammates because with this shirt wherever you play you are expected at a special match. We must not lose sight of the fact that many teams have been working since August 1st, we were not able to start until after the 23rd, so we are 3 weeks late: Belinelli is still behind, many still have to get to know each other, we will have to find the right speed of cruise later in the season, so evaluate our performance peaks already now, even not. There are errors in concentration, I don’t think we suffered too much from Robinson: others gave impetus to their defensive aggressiveness, what I have to do is limit the impact of the errors of a changed team, which had an anomalous pre-season, but which the potential to dictate a basketball that could give us some satisfaction, if we have the humility to put everything at the service of the team. Lowering the ego, ironing out many details and hoping to be healthy to see the team as we imagined it. Today we need to save judgment, we just need to squeeze the team as much as we can at a time where mistakes are part of the game, where some players have to change their characteristics: Robinson had time to get involved, we can hardly give minutes of this type. We got a little lost in the final, some drops in tension that could have cost us the match, but let’s start again from the final minutes, from the cynicism, from perfect defenses that almost never allowed Trapani to score again. We will return to the gym on Monday to raise the level a bit: we had lost a friendly match badly against Milan and there was already talk of a one-sided championship, we just have to find our way of functioning even on uninspired days. And winning here won’t be easy for anyone. The Euroleague? Our hope is to have the best season possible, last year we achieved the feat of staying in the top six positions for a long time, we paid dearly for injuries that arrived concentrated, we reached the championship final after an exhausting year and where, unlike Milan, we didn’t have a moment to catch our breath. We reached the championship final with different physical and mental energy, but it was a year of pride and gratification. I don’t know what awaits us, I’m sorry for the injuries that have altered our preparation, Shengelia is missing the tenth training session, Belinelli missed the pre-season completely, Cacok is out of action, Grazulis is back. But we will have to try to have the longest season possible, I don’t know if with the peaks of last season but it would be nice to give our team a trophy. There are many competitors in Europe, and in the championship the newly promoted ones are Trapani and Trieste: to say that Milan and Bologna monopolize is not intellectually honest, this is the toughest championship on the continent.
Belinelli – The first match of the championship is always tough. They are well trained, they will give many a hard time, it was wonderful to play here and win in front of a nice crowd. We still have a lot to do, grow a lot, learn to know ourselves: we are starting but the road is still long.
Reweigh – Big regret. Congratulations to the whole team, who came back from -19 to +5, I see the glass as half full for how we played in the match. We threw away a few balls, we had bad luck like Akele’s final basket but that’s life. We played a very close game despite our problems against a team that will make three finals this season. But tiredness killed those who were doing well on the field. A bad mistake at the end by the referees: Pajola was off the field, they were in front of them, they should have blown the whistle, even if this does not take anything away from their victory.
