Nightmarish Olimpia, Ettore Messina grooms his team

The words of Ettore Messina

Ettore Messina spoke after the defeat suffered by Olimpia Milano in Berlin: “Congratulations to Alba. They were always at a disadvantage, but they seized the moment in overtime. We did exactly what we were not supposed to do: we played terrible defense and lost a lot of balls. È the reason we lost. We were shallow, we threw away good games against Virtus and Real, with a terrible second half. We have to look at the game again and do better”.

“The way we played the decisive moments obviously had an impact. We were ahead by 12/14 points, we maybe thought it was easy to close it out. But it è never is, especially against a team with nothing to lose, with talented players and desire. The superficialityè shown in the second half è honestly very difficult to accept”.

“At this point, I have to accept the’idea that we are very superficial, especially in some players who play an important role in the team. We had four turnovers going into the offensive game and conceded at least 8 points in transition, becauseé we were slow and lazy in defensive re-entry. All our disasters have been negligence on offense and great mediocrity on defense. In all the games we have lost. We have to keep working, keep pushing, keep being more and more demanding. There’è no other way to come out”.