Virtus scores the encore and flies one step away from the championship: Brescia beaten

Bologna, 12 June 2025 - The Virtus it repeats and flies one step away from the championship. Dusko Ivanovic's team also beat Brescia 2-75 in game 65 and is now just one victory away from its 17th championship and to sew it on the jersey. tricolour coat of arms that has been missing since the 2020-21 season. Tough defense, continuous suffocating pressure on Brescia's ball carriers and an attack that rotates and finds many protagonists with Shengelia (chants and performance as MVP and leader for him) well supported by the ballistic tests of Hackett and Taylor, are the winning recipe of coach Ivanovic's Virtus. Great cheering and the beautiful choreography of the curve, welcome the teams before the tip-off, in a Segafredo Arena sold out again. Virtus on the field with the same quintet as in game 1, Taylor, Hackett, Cordinier, Shengelia, Zizic, Brescia, which brings to the scoresheet, but only for the sake of the record, Ndour, is forced to change by launching Mobio in the quintet together with Nikola Ivanovic, Della Valle, Rivers and Bilan. The challenge is initially a continuous tit for tat, then Virtus ahead 17-11 halfway through the first quarter to give the first acceleration. Brescia still remains attached to the match with the points of Nikola Ivanovic and Burnell (the best of theirs) and after a break halfway through the second seems to take control of the match.

Dusko Ivanovic calls time, reorganizes his players' ideas and they go back forward, with a defense that he no longer grants anything to Brescia and a Virtus that finds continuity in attack. Shengelia scores, Diouf acts as an intimidator and Taylor's triple in the 18th minute forces Poeta to call time for the second time in a few minutes, at 39-32. Upon returning to the bench Shengelia and Burnell "bump into each other", but then they explain themselves sportingly, no more scoring and Virtus closes the interval on a reassuring +7. In the second half the Black V starts strong with a partial of 5-0 that is immediately worth +12 on 44-32. The triple of Captain Futuro, Alessandro Pajola in his 500th game in a black and white jersey seems to definitively uncork the match for the 53-40 in the 26th minute, but Brescia confirms itself as a team that does not give up. Having reached the lowest point, Peppe Poeta's team climbs back up to -5 on 53-50 after a partial of 0-10 with Dowe leading the Lombards. Akele's triple brings the inertia back to the black and white side and it's another triple, by Pajola, that launches the V Nere to +12 63-51 at the beginning of the second half, unleashing the party of a very hot Segafredo Arena. On Tuesday at the PalaLeonessa in Brescia, already sold out game 3, Marco Belinelli and his teammates will have the first knockout blow at their disposal to close the series and conquer the tricolor.

The little table

VIRTUS BOLOGNA 75 GERMANI BRESCIA 65 SEGAFREDO BOLOGNA: Taylor 13, Hackett 10, Cordinier 4, Shengelia 15, Zizic 6; Akele 10, Diouf 4; Pajola 11, Morgan 2, Belinelli, Accorsi n/o. Coach Ivanovic. GERMANI BRESCIA: Ivanovic 12, Della Valle 3, Rivers 8, Mobio 2, Bilan 10; Burnell 21, Dowe 7, Cournooh 2, Ferrero, Ndour n/o, Tonelli n/o, Pollini n/o. Coach Poeta. Referees: Rossi, Giovannetti, Perciavalle. Notes: partial scores 22-21, 39-32, 58-51. Two-pointers: Virtus 16/37; Brescia 16/30. Three-pointers: 11/27; 7/22. Free throws: 10/13; 12/19. Rebounds: 39; 29.