Brindisi with a useless demonstration of power against Fortitudo Bologna
The motivation is the engine of the game and it’s good to give everything on the court. When it matters. Yesterday, Happy Casa Brindisi smashed Fortitudo Bologna with an unexpected margin: 78-53 in the second semifinal of the Italian Cup. A nice win, but I will never understand why in the third quarter, having a huge advantage of 30 points, Brindisi’s players were so desperate to increase the margin. They were simply fighting like hell against Fortitudo when the winner of the game was already known.
This is the opposite of wisdom. To risk injuries and to accumulate fatigue before the big final against Reyer Umana Venezia cannot be understood. The only smart thing Brindisi could do would have been to slow down the play, taking out the important players and giving more minutes to the young guys of the squad. Starting with the 2nd half, they could relax, the game was already decided. Instead of this, I saw the Americans of Brindisi playing the same strong and risky (for their health) run and gun, no matter the score was. Leading Fortitudo with 30 points, Brindisi was playing like the opponents would have that huge margin and they had to reduce it a bit.
I was surprised that Brindisi’s coach didn’t step up saying: “guys, let’s slow it down, tomorrow we have the Cup Finals, don’t push so hard…”. But he just let his players run the game at the same intensity, even if it was not necessary and not recommended to do so. Only in the 4th quarter, Happy Casa Brindisi introduced on the court step by step the young Italian players and the lead was cut a bit to only 25 points.
The game was an amazing demonstration of power from Brindisi, but useless in these circumstances when winning by 15 points means the same thing as winning at 40 points.
Photo: Basketball Champions League
Gratian Cormos
