Basketball, World Cup qualifiers: Italy beats Georgia 91-84. Injury for Gallinari

Second consecutive success for Italy in the qualifying window for the 2023 World Cup: Italbasket finds an important victory fighting and suffering for 40 ‘, but loses to Gallinari injury. To find out the extent of the injury it is necessary to wait for an MRI scan, but the coach Pozzecco is worried: “We are not so optimistic as to think we have him in the European Championship.” For the Gallo it is the same left knee that was knocked out in 2013.

ITALY-GEORGIA 91-84

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Italbasket struggles extremely against a tough Georgia, but proves to be able to fight to the end and not to be influenced even by negative events: at his exit due to injury, Gallinari was the driver of Italy. For coach Pozzecco there is still a lot of work to do in view of the upcoming European Championships, but if it is true that winning helps to win, one can be positive for the future of the Azzurri, who have shown that they have heart. In an evening with great figures for heavy shooting (42% for both teams) Pozzecco, at the palaLeonessa restarts from the Riga quintet with Spissu, Tonut, Fontecchio, Polonara and Melli while coach Zouros decides to play with the “towers” lining up together, Mamukelashvili Shermadini and Bitadze. The beginning is all in favor of the Georgians (0-7) with Spissu giving the 4500 of the palaLeonessa the first liberating roars with two consecutive triples (6-7). A plot that will be reviewed at the beginning of the second quarter (11-0) and third (12-0 the partial of the Georgians): the response of Italy often comes from the arc, with a very clogged area in which it is not easy to succeed to have access. The national team does not yet have the “killer instinct”, which arrives on several occasions to have important margins (25-18 in the first quarter, 42-34 in the second, 82-74 in the last), proving to have character in seeking a comeback in the tough moments, as at the beginning of the second half (43-50): nevertheless Italy, which first found Fontecchio, then Melli, Gallinari and finally Datome as drivers, managed to close the accounts. Until the final break of 9-0 which in the last 2 ‘allowed the national team to see the pass for the world championship much closer.

Italy: Fontecchio 21, Gallinari 17, Spissu 15.
Georgia: Bitadze 19, McFadden 16, Shermadini 12