By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olimpia Milano coach Ettore Messina is worried about the mental condition of his players in light of the multiple injury problems that have his the team in a key part of the season.
“From the beginning of the year we’re been suffering hard with injuries. It happened again. Now, I have a team that is very depressed,” Messina said after the 110 – 66 blowout loss of Milano to Anadolu Efes. It was the heaviest defeat for the Italian powerhouse this season. “We are a team that is continuously hit by bad luck. Now they are very depressed. My work with my staff is try to help them get some confidence. Because when were a little bit healthy, with Nikola and Fabien we do some pretty good things.”
“We played well, we won games and we enjoyed ourselves. Lately, we came with some good wins vs. ALBA Berlin and Maccabi Tel Aviv,” Messina added.”
Milano dropped to 11-12 with this loss, the team’s second straight after Partizan won 80 – 60 in the Forum.
The team is very frustrated and very unconfident. And we helped them restore that confidence. “Even though, like I told them, like Pat Riley said, it’s not that we open the door and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will step on the floor to help us. The situation to get players is very difficult. By the way congratulation to Efes for finding a very very good player to sign: PJ Dozier.”
Milano traveled to Istanbul without leading scorer and rebounder Nikola Mirotic,m guard Fabien Causeur and big man Ousmane Diop apart from center Josh Nebo who will be out until May. Zach LeDay and Leandro Bolmaro also had some problems and weren’t ready 100 percent.”