Venice beats Tortona: Neven Spahija’s secret to the rest of the series
Venice takes a 1-0 lead in the series against Tortona in the playoffs, and coach Neven Spahija extols the performance of his team after the important 89-82 snatched from the Piedmontese. “I think we were much more mature, as in addition to the 89 points we collected 50 rebounds,” the Reyer coach commented to ‘LBA Tv’. “Then in a playoff series having a deep bench like ours is very important. You can tell by seeing that today no one played for more than 26 minutes. Then the series will be really long, we prepare for the next one knowing that in the last two games against them we learned a lot.”
A success that takes on even more value when considering the recent precedent between the two teams. Just a week ago, on the last day of the regular season, it had been Tortona itself that had imposed itself at PalaTaliercio 78-75, with Vital as a great protagonist with 20 points. A defeat, however, had allowed Venice to close in fourth place with 38 points, while the Piedmontese had settled in fifth place with 34 points, thus defining the quarterfinal pairing.
Gara-1 thus represents an important response by the orogranata, which in view of the playoffs had had to deal with some gaps to correct. Spahija had publicly pointed the finger at the free-throw performance: in the last two home games of the regular season, against Milano and Tortona itself, Reyer had missed a total of 23, a worrying figure at such a delicate stage of the season. Evidently the work done during the week of preparation paid off.
To be closely monitored remains the situation of Jordan Parks, who in the last championship game had remained on the bench as a precaution due to a muscle discomfort. “We left him on the bench because he felt he was not good muscularly. We didn’t want to take any risks,” Spahija had explained on the eve of the playoffs. The long U.S. player had already had to deal with a left thigh flexor injury last December, and his physical condition remains one of the key elements to be managed over the course of the series.
Venice’s path in the playoffs now involves game 2 at PalaTaliercio on May 19, before the series moves to Tortona for the eventual game 3 and game 4, scheduled for May 22 and 24. The eventual bella would be played again in Venice on the 26th. In case of qualification to the semifinals, the orogranata would challenge the winner of the series between Virtus Bologna and Dolomiti Energia Trento, with the ‘Black Vu’ big favorites as the first-place team in the regular season with 46 points. A prediction also shared by artificial intelligence, which for the Venice-Tortona series predicted a 3-2 Orogranata success: the first act seems to prove this prediction right, but there is still a long way to go.
