The winter break always becomes the time for the first assessments. It is even more so if 20 championship games have already been played, i.e. 2/3 of the regular season. There Reggiana Basketball he arrives with a team that has been largely modified compared to the beginning of the year (Cheatham and Smith out, Thor, Brown and Rossato in) and with an energy that is very different from the intermittent and at times worrying energy of the first four months.
The three away victories in the championship – with Udine, Varese and Venezia – demonstrate that now, if you take the field with the right mentality and a good dose of ‘cazzimma’, the group has the numbers to leave the difficulties behind them and look forward with optimism.
The message launched by GM Sambugaro in a recent interview with our newspaper ‘We can go beyond salvation’ is an elegant, but equally unequivocal, way to make staff and players understand how the club expects – especially after the exclusion of Trapani and the efforts made on the market – to access the playoff.
The growth of the red and whites can also be seen in the numbers and the turning point, as one might expect, came above all thanks to the defense. Reggio, even in the darkest moments, has always been in the top 10 of this ‘specialty’, but is now in third place with just 80.9 points conceded. Only the two Euroleague teams, Olimpia Milano (first with 77.1) and Virtus Bologna (78.4), are doing better than Barford and his teammates.
The rearguard has once again become the pillar of every tactical discussion as it also happened last season when – in the face of a rather complicated offensive phase and often entrusted only to the talent of Winston and the explosiveness of Faye – games were won by obscuring the opponents’ basket. From this point of view, the trend has not changed, given that Pallacanestro Reggiana continues to have the worst attack of the entire team. Serie A with 80.2 points scored (the best is that of Reyer at 90.6).
Compared to the recent past, however, the most evident ‘technical gap’ concerns rebounds. In fact, last year Una Hotels was permanently in the top positions, while this year it is only eleventh with 36.3 (Udine leads with 40.4).
However, this statistical data is also improving and in the future it could prove decisive in taking the last step to reach a postseason which now, with many direct clashes within friendly walls (Trieste, Cremona and Naples above all) can really become a concrete objective.
