Basketball, Euroleague: Milan defeats Kaunas 89-87. And flies towards the play-offs

Kaunas (Lithuania), 6 February 2025 – The race for theEA7 Emporio Armani Milano Towards a Euroleague Playoff Spot: after the misstep on the Bayern Munich pitch, in fact, Olimpia promptly redeemed itself by defeating Kaunas 89-87.

The great mental strength and the strength to react to the comeback of Kaunas, capable of putting their heads ahead after having even touched -12, were the main keys to the success of Messina's men, dragged by a Zach LeDay who confirmed to be in excellent shape by finishing with a personal haul of 26 points (18 of which scored in the first 20 minutes), 5 rebounds and 11 fouls suffered.

Then, to give a hand to the Texan, they thought of a Nico Mannion's with 21 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists (27 rating for him) and Shavon Shields and, who scored 17 points. Trying to drag Zalgiris Kaunsa afloat were Sylvain Francisco, the top scorer of the match with 29 points, Lonnie Walker IV (22 points) and Deividas Syrvidis (17 points). 

Race report

It took just a few minutes for the red and whites to take the measure of Zalgiris and find the right rhythms and spacing in attack to create clean shots that LeDay and Bolmaro transformed, sealing the +5 away lead (4-9). To blunt the first mini-run by EA7, Kaunas relied on the talent of Walker and Francisco, but Milan once again raised the decibels of their game at the end of the quarter even pushing to +8 on the wings of LeDay, Bolmaro Dimitrijevic and Tonut (16-24). The returning Diop at the start of the second half raised the bar of the Milanese advantage for the first time on double digit notch (16-26).

Shoulder and reaction of Zalgiris

A push that Zalgiris was able to respond to decisively, remaining in the match thanks to the three-pointers scored by Sirvydis and Francisco and even pushing themselves at -2 at the end of a partial of 11-3 (29-31). A dangerous threat thwarted by Milan thanks to Brooks' triple that rekindled the light of the red and white attack, capable of then extending the elastic of the advantage again up to the new +8 at half time, inspired by an unstoppable Zach LeDay, already at 18 points after the first 20' of play (42-50).

Milan flies to +12

Just as it happened in the second quarter, when leaving the locker rooms Milan started off well, flying to +12 (55-67 signed by Shields) and apparently managing to keep Zalgiris at a safe distance. Coach Trinchieri's lowering of the quintet and the home team's recourse to systematic changes in defense, however, suddenly reopened all discussions and took away certainties from Milan's attack: with an 11-0 break, in fact, Zalgiris came back to -1 with 10' to go to then place the overtaking paw on yet another triple by Francisco just over 6' from the fourth siren. In the moment of maximum difficulty, however, all the resilience of Milan emerged, which, in the final point by point, managed to get the upper hand thanks to the coolness of Mannion and Shields.