Will Partizan stay perfect in Eurocup against Umana Venezia?
The Eurocup Group B’s derby will take place in the sixth round between Partizan Belgrade and Reyer Venezia, in a group lead by Partizan’s perfect run with five victories from five games. Venezia is currently in second place with 3 victories and two defeats. They have already met before, in the first round when Partizan won away with 66-63. Let’s see how the teams performed since then.
Since that nice win in Italy, everything was good for Partizan. In Eurocup, they won all their matches, but in ABA League they had some problems with two defeats suffered against revelation Primorska and against Cedevita Olimpija, both games away. In the last ABA League game, they won at home against a young FMP team, 90-85. Their defense wasn’t top level, letting the opponents shot 58% of their attempts, including 11 shots out of 21 attempts from the distance. Probably they didn’t take this game 100% seriously, because they saw in FMP a much weaker opponent, but that could lead to an undesirable defeat. Their three points shooting was poor, finishing with 5 made out of 23 attempts. The main contributors were RaShawn Thomas (23 points and 5 rebounds), Nemanja Gordic (15 points and 5 assists) and Ognjen Jaramaz (10 points and 3 assists). They used 9 players in this game, each of them playing at least 15 minutes.
On the other hand, Venezia’s season is full of ups and downs. Their start of the season was bad, but lately, they found their rhythm and now they have a 5-2 record in all competitions. In the last round in Seria A, they lost away at Brindisi 75-71. Brindisi led all the game, with Venezia having no chance to make a comeback. Their shooting was decent and also won the rebounds battle, but the attention was the main factor for those 19 turnovers they’ve made in the game. That allows Brindisi to have more opportunities and score many points on those mistakes. This thing should not happen against Partizan, because if they do, the outcome will be the same. The main contributors were: Mitchell Watt (13 points and 9 rebounds), Austin Daye (12 points and 6 rebounds) and Jeremy Chappell (12 points and 5 rebounds). They used the entire roster available for the game, with all 10 players playing at least 10 minutes each.
Like I said before, Partizan won away in the first round against Venezia after a low scoring game. Both teams had kind of low percentages from the field, also from the free-throw line, but again, Venezia’s main problem was the turnovers. They have to be more cautious when they pass the ball and take care more of it if they want to have a chance in Serbia. I expect great support for Partizan and with that, they will have the first chance to win the game.
Photo: www.eurocupbasketball.com
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
