Armani Milano, simply too weak to win vs. Real Madrid
Last night, Armani Milano has lost a huge opportunity to win against Real Madrid. The Italians were my favourites to win because:
They had both games of the week in Euroleague at home, while Real Madrid had one game at home Tuesday and then they had to travel to Milan. So, Armani Milano had more rest than the visitors.
The Spaniards came without a couple of players and their head coach Pablo Laso that has Covid 19. In these circumstances, Armani Milano had better chances to win.
Last, but not least, Ettore Messina has now almost all his players available. Only Mitoglou is an important missing, but they have signed Ben Bentil to temporarily replace him.
So how to explain that stupid loss? First of all Armani Milano played without a big center. The only real center they have, Kaleb Tarczewski, 2.13 m played 40 seconds!!! Then you have Kyle Hines, an undersized guy that is playing center but having only 1.98 m. Ben Bentil is only 2.04 m. And you have the other guys like Melli and Datome, both 2.05 m but they are not true centers, but forwards that can help with some rebounds. How do you want to stop the giant Edy Tavares? And ex-NBA strong center Vincent Poirier? And Anthony Randolph?
What actually happened was that not these big guys scored many points, but Madrid’s win came from the arc. Armani Milano was not able to defend the three-point line, giving the visitors the opportunity to score almost 50% (13/27). That was the effect of the zone defense, created to cover the impossibility to face one-on-one Madrid’s centers.
With such a poor offense and defense you cannot win in Euroleague.
Image credit: Euroleague
Gratian Cormos is a Romanian life coach, journalist, book writer and mentor currently living in Barcelona, Spain. You can buy his book “How to bet on basketball” ordering by e-mail at: gratian_cormos@yahoo.com
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