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Bertram's new year begins in Naples: coach De Raffaele's words on the eve of the penultimate day of the first half of the season

Bertram's new year begins in Naples: coach De Raffaele's words on the eve of the penultimate day of the first half of the season

The first of 2025 is far from home for Bertram Derthona, expected at 20:45 tomorrow, Saturday 4 January, by Napolibasket at the FVA PalaBarbuto in the capital of Naples for the 14th day of the Serie A Unipol, the penultimate of the first round. From the league leaders to the bottom of the table, this is the leap in opponent level that the calendar offers Derthona after the great success against the league leaders Trento that closed the old year. Bertram, who will be without Gorham for the third consecutive match, is chasing a fourth consecutive win – ninth overall in the championship – which would mathematically guarantee qualification to the Final Eight of the Coppa Italia with one round to spare without worrying about the results of the others, thanks to the recent climb into the playoff zone that has installed them in sixth place with 16 points, 4 more than the ninth place that at the end of the first leg will exclude them from the tricolor kermesse in Turin.

REVOLUTIONARY OPPONENT Napoli's mere 2 points in the standings are misleading compared to the current level of competitiveness of the team due to recent market operations that have changed the face of the Neapolitans quite a bit, also fresh from the change of coach with the arrival of Giorgio Valli in place of Igor Milicic. The Campania management has brought back two protagonists of the Italian Cup won last year, Jacob Pullen and Tomislav Zubcic, and taken three other important names such as Erick Green, Malik Newman and Benjamin Bentil, the author of the missed three-point shot on the buzzer that would have brought Napoli to overtime in the salvation challenge in Varese (89-86). Instead, the first seasonal success had arrived the week before in overtime in the home derby with Scafati (96-94), opponent of the Tortona team at home in the next round that will lead to the halfway point of the tournament.

WHERE TO SEE IT ON TV The race will be broadcast live on DAZN.

STATEMENTS "The team trained very well after Trento, certainly the victories help to work better", thus begin the coach's statements on the eve of the match Walter De Raffaele. “Napoli is a team that has completely changed its face, with a quintet that has many Euroleague-level players in its names. Especially at home, it has the ability to score many points, in many ways and with many players, from Pullen to Zubcic, from Green to Bentil. It loves to run the court, so it will be very important to impact this ability of theirs, slow them down, because individually they have a lot of talent. In attack, the fundamental element for us will be the idea of ​​sharing the ball”.