The best of our basketball is in the final between Olimpia Milano and Virtus Bologna

The Italian basketball championship is not a yellow book in which you discover the killer on the last page. You always knew it would end like this, with Milan and Bologna fighting for the Scudetto for the third year in a row. Olimpia and Virtus are richer and stronger than any other team in our championship, even those that have grown a lot like Tortona or Sassari, who came out without winning a single game in the semifinals. It was obvious that they would still arrive in the final. The championship is not like the Italian Cup Finals where, in one game, anything can happen and Brescia may even succeed in immediately eliminating Armani and then beating Segafredo in the final. No the playoffs are something else. It is played to the best of 5 games until the final which stretches up to seven. To become champion you need to win 4 games. In the end, the strongest always wins, or at least the one with the best head and legs, in the 15 most important days of the year (it starts on June 9th and, if you get to race seven, it ends on the 23rd).

Statistics tell us that since the final has been played in the best of 7 games (since the 2007/08 playoffs) on 10 occasions out of 12 the team that won game 1 has become champion of Italy. The only exceptions were those of Sassari ( in 2015 Dinamo was even 2-0 down against Reggio Emilia) and Venice in 2017. Still the statistics tell us that Milan and Bologna, with different properties and sponsors from today, are in the fifth final of their history and the balance says three championships in Bologna and only one, that of last year in Milan with a total of 10-5 for the black Vs which this year between the super cup, championship and Euroleague won 4 out of 5 matches against Milan. But the previous ones say nothing, they don’t tell enough to understand how the challenge for a Scudetto will end which would be the thirtieth, that of the third star, for Milan and the 17th for Bologna.

The Scudetto would change the ending of a season that hasn’t been triumphant for anyone so far. Especially for Milan which lost the super cup, the Italian cup and didn’t even enter the Euroleague playoffs. It has been said that not even the Scudetto would have saved Milan from bankruptcy. An exaggeration, written to tell that in any case a team built to reach the Euroleague Final Four cannot be happy if it ends the year by winning only the Scudetto. He can celebrate, even a lot, but not be happy. And at Olimpia they know it well, so much so that they’ve already started working to strengthen the team and club even more for the next challenges. A scudetto would save appearances and not the substance of a season that was in any case below expectations even if it would be the scudetto with the third star, the second in a row, the first in an odd year which is a curse for Milan. For Bologna the story is different. Virtus was a rookie in the Euroleague, having conquered the Eurocup. It could have done better, but it wasn’t built to win the cup like Milan. He had to prove he could stay with the best in Europe and he did. With the new building it can continue to grow, if investments don’t drop drastically. The Scudetto would be the ultimate prize, but defeat would not be a total failure.

Whatever happens should be a show because Milan and Bologna have never arrived in such good form at the final show. Two years ago Olimpia went to the final emptied, they had lost themselves behind the European dream coming just a whisker away from the cup in Cologne. Last year it was Virtus who were worse off after winning their cup. She managed to extend the series, but arrived exhausted in the decisive game. This year Messina and Scariolo can make their choices, they are not forced by the infirmary. They have their best arrows at their disposal. They can play it however they like. In the end, theirs is also a personal challenge. Certainly they don’t put on a show like Peterson and Bianchini did who knew how to inflame the vigils. But Ettore and Sergio are Italy’s best on the bench, they’ve won wherever they’ve gone and when they play against each other they forget to respect each other and only see a rivalry comparable to that between Milan and Inter in football. the teams of their heart. Several there too, in football cheering. How different they are in the way they manage their teams even if they wanted them as big, tough and bad as needed on a basketball court. It won’t be a series between the defense of Milan (often keeps the opponents under 60 points) and the deadly attack of Virtus (four times over 100 in the six playoff games). They are not, as Dan Peterson puts it, “two specialist teams”. They are two teams that also know how to interpret the other side of the matches. Milan knows how to become a joyful attacking machine and Bologna is capable of blowing up opponents’ attacks. It will be a total challenge. What our basketball needs to conquer some space.