Fabo Herons Montecatini: decisive challenge in game-2 against Paffoni Omegna

Only once in its short history has Fabo Herons Montecatini started a playoff series with home field advantage and lost game 1, namely in the Serie C Gold final against Gema Montecatini. The epilogue of that series is known to everyone in the spa town and coach Federico Barsotti and his boys hope that the match against Paffoni Omegna, winner on Saturday at the PalaTagliate, can end the same way. For this to happen, however, Natali and his teammates will have to raise the level of their game tonight in game 2 (tip-off at 20:30 p.m., again in the Lucca gym), because 93 points conceded at home are definitely too many, especially in the playoffs, and because in more than one moment of the first game the Piedmontese gave the impression of being in total control of the operations: "We were fragile not so much in the situations in which Omegna usually exploits its strengths, but in other aspects of the game in which I thought we could do better - analyzes coach Barsotti -. One above all was our ability to defend: we conceded 72 points in three quarters and this is not acceptable, but we also had little energy despite coming from two weeks of excellent training and the feelings were good. We will try to bring the series back to parity but if we want to have a chance we must certainly defend better". How do you reset from a defeat having only thirty-six hours available to prepare for another game? "It's not easy because losing at home is painful, especially in the playoffs and it's something we weren't used to anymore, considering we were coming off 7 consecutive victories in front of our fans – he admits –. However, if we were able to compete and come close to winning against a team that up to a certain point in the game was able to shoot 62 percent from the field, it means that we've done something good, we'll take it and try to replicate it, correcting the mistakes made as much as possible".

Filippo Palazzoni