Venice rises again, incredible Avellino

After Grissin Bon Reggio Emilia’s victory in the advance against Vanoli Cremona, the other protagonists of the Beko A Series took to the parquet.

Reyer Venezia, coming off two consecutive defeats and the poor showing at the Forum against EA7 in the Coppa Italia, hosts Enel, a direct opponent for a playoff spot. At the Taliercio, Brindisi starts the challenge with the right attitude: Anosike, Banks and Zerini repeatedly pierce the Orogranata basket, while on the other side the Apulian defense forces De Raffaele’s men to only 4 points in 3 minutes. Banks again hits two bombs in a row and the guests stretch to 7-16, which scares the Venetian crowd. When Reyer’s offense gets into rhythm, however, Bramos, Goss and Ress sew up the tear, even going so far as to put their noses ahead for the 22-20 with which the first half closes. From this moment on, it is balance that reigns on the parquet and with Ortner’s basket the two teams go to the long break on 39-37. At the resumption of hostilities the Reyer’s great ball circulation allows the hosts to try to escape with baskets by Goss, Green and the experience of Ress, but on the other side an Adrian Bansk from anthology allows Enel not to sink. Not even the numbers of the Brindisi star, however, can do anything against the almost perfect night of Reyer, which finally closes the accounts in the last 10 minutes of the game for the 97-75 final with which De Raffaele’s men try to get out of the crisis.

Great balance, on the other hand, in the salvation challenge between Betaland Capo d’Orlando and Pasta Reggia Caserta with Gennaro Di Carlo’s lineup getting a very important victory that will allow the Sicilians to face the continuation of the season with more serenity, also accomplice the simultaneous defeat of Manital Torino. The first partial smiles to the guests who can count on the scoring streak of the couple Jones-Downs who launch the first escape attempt of the Campani. Among Betaland’s ranks, however, it is a super Ryan Boatright who shakes things up and his 15 points at halftime bring Orlandina back in touch (37-39). In the second half, the challenge turns into something of a mistake fair: Caserta never makes a basket and Capo d’Orlando relies on its former Uconn point guard to put the arrow and stretch in the final (28 points for Boatright). At Pala Fantozzi it ends 65-59.

Finally, an outside victory for Opejobmetis Varese, which climbs to 16 points in the league standings. At Pala Ruffini, Paolo Moretti’s lineup starts off like a fury: Rihards Kuksiks is infallible from the 6.75 m arc, and with Kangur’s bomb, Openjobemetis closes the first fraction on 14-28, freezing the Turin audience. Manital, however, soon manages to send the Lombardy lineup into the bonus and from the free-throw lineup curls the margin back up to -5 with which they go to the long interval (39-44) despite the 11 points of a dominant Faye under the boards. Also making a big noise under the boards is Luca Campani, whose baskets allow Varese to regain rhythm and confidence in attack and widen the gap on the opponents again. The main difference, however, lies in the percentages from the field: while Manital struggles to reach 30% from 3-point range, the Lombardi travel with 70% from behind the arc. With these numbers it is difficult to lose and in fact the guests ramped up in the final for the 72-84 with which the challenge ended. White’s 21 and Ebi’s 24 were answered by Campani’s 20 and Kuksiks’ 21.

It’s Sidigas Avellino that wins the second postponement of the day against Dinamo Sassari at the end of a game with a crazy trend. The first quarter is pure spectacle: the two teams think little about defense and find the conclusion from the 6.75m arc with disarming consistency: the score after the first 10 minutes of the game says 28-34 in favor of Pino Sacripanti’s lineup, just back from the defeat in the Coppa Italia final against Milan. Akognon and Nunnally respond blow by blow to each other’s threes and the home crowd can’t help but enjoy the two teams showing off surgical precision that sets the PalaSerradimigni nets on fire. As predictable, and in some ways inevitable, the percentages and intensity of the game drop as the minutes go by and Sassari takes advantage of this to try to sew up the tear with Alexander and Kenny Kadji until the 50-53 with which we go to the long interval. After 10 minutes of ‘truce’ the shooting starts again in the third fraction with the hosts first tying the score at 56 and then and then even put the arrow with Tony Mitchell. Ragland tried to shake up Sidigas Avellino but it was Alexander’s dunk that closed the third fraction at 80-77 in favor of the hosts. In the last quarter, the importance of what was at stake and 30 minutes of exhausting intensity at times made Dinamo’s hands shake, as they could no longer find a single conclusion from the arc and suffered the rabid comeback of the Irpinian wolves, who with Ragland’s triple 11 seconds from the final buzzer signed the 92-95 score. It is Logan’s last basket but at PalaSerrdimigni it ends 94-95.