Bertram is in Venice to learn his playoff fate: "We know exactly what we're playing for."
With just forty minutes left, Bertram Derthona Tortona will know their opponent in the first round of the 2026 Serie A Unipol playoffs. Tomorrow at 5:00 PM at the PalaTaliercio in Mestre, Mario Fioretti's team will face hosts Umana Reyer Venezia for the thirtieth and final matchday of the regular season. The match will be broadcast live on LBATV and Sky Sport channel 256.
Playoff scenarios
Derthona will have to beat the Granata or count on Reggio Emilia's defeat in Treviso to maintain their current fifth-place position and fend off the onslaught of Reggio, who are trailing them by two points (32 to 30) with a head-to-head advantage. This will allow Bertram to book an immediate return to the Lagoon in a week's time for the first two away matches against the Venetians—already assured of fourth place—in the opening round of the playoffs, while awaiting Game 3 at home in the best-of-five series.
Conversely, if they lose at Taliercio and win at the same time, Reggio Emilia will overtake them, finishing in sixth place. This will likely be matched against EA7 Emporio Armani Milano in the quarterfinals. If they lose in Venice, there's also a possibility that their opponent could be current runners-up Brescia. This would occur if Brescia lost at home to already-relegated Sassari and Milan won in Trento, which would then relegate Germani to third place, sending them to Bertram.
How do the two teams arrive?
After a complicated April in terms of results, last Sunday's success at the Nova Arena against Brescia (88-80) has given Baldasso and his teammates complete confidence.
Venice, 6 points ahead of Tortona in the standings and with a disappointing recent home performance with three defeats in the last three, is coming off an overwhelming victory in Cremona (88-111), demonstrating that they have metabolised the home defeat in the previous round against Milan in the play-off for third place.
The team led by coach Neven Spahija and former Tortona player Leonardo Candi is the most prolific in the league with 90.6 points scored per game and leads more or less in several other statistical categories, being the best of all also for rating (106.0), assists (19.1) and total rebounds (38.1) and the second for total field goal percentage (48.0%), as well as being the second best at guarding their own basket from close range with 51.6% allowed to their opponents in two-point shooting.
Seasonal precedents with Umana Reyer Venezia
In the first leg of the league season, Reyer became the first team this season to conquer the Nova Arena, defeating it 98-90 on November 23rd in the ninth round. Kyle Wiltjer's 23 points topped the scorer's tally, ahead of Christian Vital's 22. It was a completely different story in the last matchup, the Coppa Italia quarterfinal on February 19th at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, which launched Derthona's run to the final for the national trophy. Prentiss Hubb led the way with 17 points and six assists, while five Bianconeri players (Baldasso 16, Vital 15, Chapman 13, Gorham 12, and the others) finished in vain. RJ Cole's 26 points were in vain.
The point of Iacopo Squarcina
The Taliercio match is being introduced by one of Mario Fioretti's assistants. "When we talk about Venice, we're talking about a Top 4 team in the league, as demonstrated by their standings and their season. They're a team with enormous talent, great ambition, physicality, athleticism, and a complete team in every position," says Iacopo Squarcina. "Therefore, it's obvious that we expect a match against an extremely competitive and combative opponent who won't want to make a bad impression at home; on the contrary, they'll be looking to prepare as best they can for the playoffs."
"We'll have to be good at repeating a competent performance on both ends of the pitch, like we did in the Coppa Italia match. The whole physicality thing will be key, keeping them from running, thus reducing our turnovers."
"We know what we're playing for. We can finish fifth and therefore meet Venice again very soon in the playoffs," Squarcina said, speaking of the decisive standings implications of the match. "Regardless of this, our mantra throughout the season has been to approach every game with the same mentality. We've always been good at resetting after each game, focusing on the individual week and never beyond. I think the training sessions we had this week demonstrated just that. We trained with the right tension and intensity, and our only focus is on Venice. We'll think about the playoffs later."
(PHOTO CREDIT: Ciamillo-Castoria Agency)
