Virtus: the importance of Pajola and Hackett in the game and defense

Everything starts from there, from the midfield. Using this football simile, speaking of baskets, may seem risky. However, it gives an idea of ​​the situation. The Virtus has changed its skin after a certain balance has been reformed in the middle. And in the middle, creating play for their teammates, there are above all them, Alexander Pajola e Daniel Hackett.

Sure, Dusko Ivanovic has also used other ball carriers – Morgan, Cordinier himself, rarely Clyburn –, but what Pajola and Hackett can give is unmatched.

And at the same time, you can't even talk about hierarchies: it doesn't matter who, between the two, starts the game, it matters much more than who is on the field in the final minutes, when the games take precise directions. There is no marked hierarchy like a few years ago, perhaps (or rather, without perhaps) Pajola has raised the level of the game: but Alessandro and Daniel are equally fundamental. Not only because they have the ability to get their teammates into rhythm, with a natural predisposition to assist and sacrifice, but also because when they are well, with their legs and their inclination, they end up sending rival attacks haywire.

Those two are fundamental to ensure that Virtus has that defensive energy from which - also following the dictates of the coach and his way of understanding the basketball – everything starts.

If Hackett and Pajola are moving, then the whole team benefits. Daniel with his ability, often diabolical, to force the opponent to break through, Alessandro with that systematic pressure on the ball, which allows him to be a sort of Mike D'Antoni of the new millennium.

Pajola still has the face of a 'cinno', but he has put together 25 years, a number of matches that allows him to be in the top ten of all-time bianconeri and considerable experience.

An encyclopedic treatise should be written on Hackett's experience, born in 1987. To become lethal weapons, and also to relieve teammates from further pressure, they need to put the same energy into shooting. They are not gunners or serial shooters by nature.

But in modern basketball there can't be an element that only plays as a sideline. Altruistic yes, but not excessively so as to avoid that their marker can dedicate himself to something else, that is, the double.

Back to the gym today, after two days of relaxation granted by the coach. Virtus is tied to Pajola and Hackett. It's a case of saying: watch out for those two.

Finally, on Saturday, the absence of VIrtus fans residing in Bologna and the province was confirmed due to the ban imposed by the Tuscan Prefecture.