NAPLES. There are two actions that photograph the game of the Apu Old WIld West defeated in Naples also in the garadue in the final promotion. The first: the bianconeri with Johnson and Italian steal the ball, a carom makes Mayo finish the ball who places the bloodiest bomb there is.
The second: in a counterattack Schina misses a simple pass to Mian who was preparing to shoot from three. At 20, Schina had an extraordinary season, but you can’t afford some mistakes at these levels. Udine is now 2-0 down, but he played this match as he should: he just lacked a little more precision in the three-point shot, a fundamental weapon for a team like Apu.
Exactly seven months ago, on November 22, Udine began the championship by winning in Mantua. Including the four October Super Cup matches, yesterday’s match number fifty was enormous for the A2 series. Nobody has played more than Udine.
The first photo of the palaBarbuto is Andrea Amato sitting on a chair off the bench: after having skipped race one the Milanese gives up even in the garadue and it is not good news for the APU. In fact, Boniciolli does not find any more points in attack that would have been important to try to change the script of Sunday night’s race.
And in the calculation, it should not be forgotten that Mussini is also missing. With all due respect, put yourself in the shoes of Boniciolli who faces a final with two Under 21s (Mobio and Deangeli) and a young player (Schina). President Alessandro Pedone shows up with a black T-shirt and the white Udine writing printed on the chest.
During the warm-up Boniciolli catechizes Mobio twice. And in fact, as it happens, the number 12 from Udine starts in the starting lineup with Giuri, Jonhson, Antonutti and Foulland. Goes to man marking on Mayo? No, on Parks. Johnson starts on the trail of the Neapolitan elf and with the first bomb of the match (2-5) he also gives the first advantage of the series to the Old Wild West.
Running in sweltering heat, the protagonists have to wipe their sweat away with each suspension of the game. And the shooting percentages are poor: thanks to the defenses, okay, but also to tension and imprecision.
There is a player who stands above all: it is Marini who in the first two quarters places 17 points out of 26 in Naples: 3 out of 6 from two, 3 out of 3 from the arc. Simply impressive. Udine finds himself under 7 (13-6) and at less than 4’43 ”from the first siren coach Boniciolli must call time out. Foulland crushes Parks in the face, is fouled but the referee does not see, then again he and DJ with a dunk on the counterattack after a stolen ball mend the tear.
Udine defends with an intensity that had never been seen in game one, with almost systematic defensive changes that create problems for the hosts, the problem is that he practically never scores from three (1 out of 10 at the interval). Yet he manages to put his nose back on thanks to a counterattack concluded by Deangeli.
You swear he misses two bombs in a row that are not from him and that would have allowed the APU a mini extension, Naples does even worse from the line shooting with 20% from the line (2 out of 10). Udine has 13 seconds to play the last action before the break, but in fact he dies with the ball in his hand. Evidently the PalaBarbuto sauna plays bad jokes.
The feeling is that, with the same defensive intensity, the team that manages to raise the shooting percentages first will take the game home. DJ scores the bomb of -2 (29-27) then Mian loses the ball and on the other side scores from the Zerini arc: this is bad for Udine. The same goes for Zerini’s double block on Giuri who, in the following action, fails to free himself from the arc when Napoli returned to its maximum advantage at 34-27.
Udine does not give up, he clings to the game with tooth and nail and with three baskets from Mian, Foulland and Antonutti returns to minus 2. Then on the last action the usual incredible Marini invents the only very difficult basket of his third quarter (41-37). That Udine is still in the game shooting with 2 out of 15 from the arc is almost a feat.
At the beginning of the last quarter the percentage is lowered due to the errors of Jonhson and Giuri, on the other hand, Monaldi is not wrong, bringing Naples back to plus 9 (44-37) when there are 7’52 ”. Mayo puts the bomb of the plus 10 and it seems over, instead four points of Italian and a game of 2 plus 1 of DJ reopen everything. When after Foulland’s two wrong free throws the iron spits Giuri’s three-point throw, the curtain really falls.
Good Napoli to go 2-0, but Udine gave everything but if you make 4 out of 24 out of three, lose 15 balls and miss 7 free out of 19 you can’t win on the field of the first class.
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