
It's Play-In time: Bertram hosts Peristeri in Game 1 of the Champions League play-offs. The words of assistant coach Squarcina
The first outing of 2025 on the home parquet immediately brings a game of considerable importance for the season of Bertram Derthona. Having filed away the defeat in Naples which however did not compromise the qualification for the Final Eight of the Italian Cup (to obtain the pass they will have to beat Scafati at home next Saturday or otherwise hope for the knockout of Treviso in Varese the day after), for the black and white team it is time to dive back into Europe tomorrow evening. At 20:30 at the PalaEnergica Paolo Ferraris in Casale Monferrato Derthona begins the Play-In of the Champions League with Game-1 against the Greeks of Peristeri Domino's, the first act of the best-of-three series that puts at stake that qualification for the Top 16 that slipped away by a whisker in the very last seconds of the first phase of the maximum continental competition for FIBA clubs.
COURSE FACTOR TO EXPLOIT Walter De Raffaele's black and whites face the Play-In with the advantage of the home field advantage by virtue of the second place in Group G behind Manresa with 5 wins and 1 loss, against the third place with which the Greeks ended Group H behind Murcia and Manisa and ahead of FMP Belgrade with a balance of 2-4. Game-2 is scheduled for next Tuesday in Peristeri, in the event of a draw after the first two games, the decisive Game-3 will be played by Bertram at home on Wednesday 22 January (20:30 p.m.). The winner will advance to the Round of 16 in the group where AEK Athens and German Wurzburg have already qualified and where the winner of another Play-In will land, the one between Turkish Karsiyaka and Greek Promitheas Patras.
THE OPPONENT Peristeri also opened the new year with an away defeat in the league, at the hands of Panionios (83-73), eighth defeat in thirteen matches that kept the quintet of coach Georgios Limniatis in eighth place in the standings, four points above the last place. Their best scorer in the Champions League with 14.2 points on average is the small forward ex-Fenerbahce Jarell Eddie, the most famous name of the roster together with the point guard CJ Harris, who was also Best Quintet of the Champions League in 2020/21 with Hapoel Holon. Keep an eye on the gem Neoklis Avdalas (6.0 points and 3.0 rebounds in 16.5' on average), under observation by NBA scouts. For Peristeri it will be the third consecutive appearance in the Play-In with a passage of the round last season, for Tortona it is the second in a row in as many participations with the aim of snatching the historic qualification for the Top 16 after the 0-2 with which last year Galatasaray put an end to the first European campaign in the history of the club.
NURSERY Gorham is continuing his recovery plan from his physical problem and just on the eve of the game he started working with the team again. Biligha will be re-evaluated close to the game. Zerini is awaiting the results of the instrumental tests for the blow to the nose he suffered in the game in Naples.
WHERE TO SEE IT ON TV The race will be broadcast live on DAZN.
STATEMENTS "We have to completely forget about the qualifying round, we are in a different phase, with direct elimination, where every match counts and obviously Game 1 has double value", says the assistant coach Iacopo Squarcina. “You don’t have to think about what happened but immerse yourself immediately in an extremely difficult game in terms of mental impact, also coming from the defeat against Naples. The challenge will be tough from a physical point of view, to be faced with the right conviction. Peristeri’s strong point is first of all its experience, it is not a team with a lot of running like Manresa and Chemnitz were, which we faced in the first phase, it wants to control the game, it has many different solutions but in the end it relies a lot on the talent of its Americans, CJ Harris and Jarell Eddie first and foremost, with Chris Coffey acting as a wildcard in the long sector being able to play both as a power forward and as a pivot. They have added two players, Chad Brown and Vladimir Jankovic, so it is a team in progress that is changing its structure. The other aspect to underline is the growth of the 2006 class Avdalas, he is a talented player who is gaining confidence, he loves to play on the counterattack, he can play four different roles. From our point of view - he concludes - It will be important to impose physicality because they suffer when they are attacked, we will have to be able to resist in one-on-one situations, paying close attention to their characteristics and controlling the rebounds to then run on the counterattack and play much more with a flow, without crashing into them. their defense collapsed but moving the ball”.