The Basketball Forlì 2.015 wins in Milan, but still doesn’t convince, at least not fully convincing. Ups and downs between one match and another and within the same match are still there puzzle to solve for coach Antimo Martino who however can count on the veteran’s contribution, both in terms of the pitch and the locker room Dada Pasture (cover photo by Stefano Albanese)which we of Victory Square we reached out by phone to hear his impressions of this first part of the season.
Good morning Pascolo, on Saturday you brought home a very important victory for morale and for the standings. What did the coach focus his energy on when training resumed?
“Good morning first of all. As mentioned, it was a very important victory for the standings and for morale because it was obtained against a team that was coming off a streak of six consecutive victories and with the coach we started again by focusing on how to improve some details, on improving the circulation of the ball and the rhythm that we must try to have even in moments when we are in difficulty. In practice we focused on our difficulties in the second half in which we suffered an important break from them”.
The Allianz Cloud match was a two-sided game in which you played a first half bordering on perfection and a second half in which you were about to create a great omelette against an opponent without their best scorer. In the end it went well, but how do you explain these metamorphoses?
“Urania Milano must certainly also be given ample credit as they raised their aggressiveness in defense and managed to put us in difficulty by breaking up our games. For our part, we were no longer able to be clean in our executions and we allowed several counterattacks from which they gained confidence and therefore, as I said before, we will have to be more careful in these situations, trying to maintain the inertia of the match. Saturday’s finale was point by point, one of the heart-pounding ones, but after a match that was controlled for large stretches we undoubtedly had to end it sooner.”.
Even in defeats you were one of the most positive with a performance that was always quite regular. However, what is missing from the team in general to achieve a certain regularity of performance?
“One of our weapons must be to find different protagonists in all the matches, to be a versatile team with many possibilities and at this moment to be mainly compact in defense and from that build our offensive phase. In Milan we did it in certain moments of the match, in spurts, but we will have to try to be more continuous, but we are working on it and I think coach Antimo Martino can also agree on this”.
This is a decidedly more difficult championship than the previous ones and we have underlined it several times, but beyond the high competitiveness the fans have the perception of a team, this year’s, that has not yet managed to be a team like was in the previous two seasons.
“I can say, looking at the results, that at this moment we must try to be more consistent because in the previous two seasons Forlì finished ahead of everyone and with a very small number of defeats. As I have often underlined, compactness must start from the defense and therefore we must try to have this as a point of reference by trying to have the right balance. It is an aspect on which we are working even if unfortunately we are not always able to reach the objective immediately, but we will try to do so in order to be absolutely more compact”.
We come to her who on Sunday will be the ex of the match against Piacenza, bottom of this Serie A2 and fresh from 4 consecutive defeats. What pitfalls do you have to guard against for the 14th matchday?
“First of all they will recover the match against Turin tomorrow (today for those reading) and we will have to impact the match in the best possible way with great aggression. Then it must be said that Piacenza is a very young team that has great freshness and athleticism and that makes dynamism and aggressiveness its identity. We will have to be ready for the battle because the ranking is a bit misleading as they lost many matches in the final. As a former player, I take this opportunity to underline how much I enjoyed the two years I spent in Piacenza, as they also know, because in my moment of great difficulty they gave me that opportunity and I will always thank them”.
How does the fact that there is a player like Perkovic on the pitch change, if it changes for you, compared to someone like Dawson?
“Obviously they are players with different characteristics, but as far as I’m concerned I get along well with both because I always try to get to know and adapt to my teammates and I think that’s what everyone should do. They certainly have different qualities but they can be equally useful to the team. We could or will be able to go back to exploiting them with Dawson (he is still injured) and we can exploit them with Perkovic who is more of a guard, a very dynamic player, but with whom I get along very well on the pitch. From a tactical point of view nothing changes for me, the only thing that changes is that with Dawson you have more physicality on rebounds and in certain situations, while with Perkovic you have more perimeter solutions which can still be good for the team.”.
We are tackling a hot, current topic that has often represented a problem in this part of the season. Management of the last possession. Why does Forlì often end up in confusion in the last possession and deprive themselves of the last shot? Since it often happened to Harper, are we sure he is the right man to entrust with the management of the last action?
“Let’s say that the last shot is always a particular shot because it comes at a time when plans are often broken, but we trust Demonte blindly. The coach makes his choices if he has the time out available or, if the action happens without the possibility of the time out, depending on how the game goes then the solution is found. I honestly don’t see it as a problem and, I repeat, we have maximum confidence in our choices. If we then had to get to the last shot with the game already in our pocket it would be even better (laughs)”.
Today you are seventh, the last useful place for the playoffs. Where do you think Unieuro can place itself and who will be the team that will go directly to A1?
“At this moment it will be trivial to say it, but we must not think too much about the ranking which we are clearly looking at, but rather we must think about performing, being compact and being a team that must score points and therefore we must be concentrated mainly on ourselves. Obviously the ranking is there and it’s not that we don’t consider it, but this must be our mentality. As for the team that will go directly to A1, it’s too early to say because there are still many games left and many teams can aspire to promotion, but if I really had to say one, on paper the favorite is Cantù.”
Thanks to Pallacanestro Forlì 2.015 e Davide “Dada” Pascolo for the availability shown in giving this interview.
