Basketball, the best of the 18th day of Serie A: ideal quintet, surprise, Italian

Knock Milan out and find herself alone at the top of the standings. What else? Germani is the real locomotive of the championship, 15 wins out of 17, undefeated at home and heroic at the Allianz Cloud, where they come back from 14 points and are ecstatic about Amedeo Della Valle who has been MVP of the championship so far. Milan falls against Brescia, it hasn’t happened for almost 7 years, and reflects on the second knockout in a row in the championship which is also the fourth of the last five if we also consider the Euroleague. Bologna also falls, like Milan in their own stadium, throwing away a 17-point lead against Trento: for Edwards and his teammates the streak of consecutive victories in Serie A ends at five. Virtus climbs to second place but with 4 points ahead of Milan and Venice, which surpasses Cantù led by the usual Wiltjer (20.6 points on average in the last 9 and 52% from 3). Tortona’s misstep at home against Udine thanks to a late shot from captain Alibegovic, which thus erases the nightmare ending against Brescia seven days ago (turned ball, fifth foul and basket suffered by Rivers plus technical foul and comeback defeat in the last 60”) and Trieste approaches, unbeaten for 3 rounds. In the safety zone, Sassari beats Cremona (eighth knockout in the last 10) and gains the advantage in head-to-head battles, Reggio is a privateer, dominates Varese (Echenique 15+6+2 blocks) and reaches them on 12 points. The feeling, at least for now, is that the relegation team will be between Cantù and Treviso, who close the table with 8 and 6 points.