Last night I was here in Italy in a little town near Roma watching the Brose Baskets Bamberg game against Panathinaikos – well I had to since we did the LIVE blog. But with one eye I was following the statistics of the Siena – CSKA game just because Siena was up by 13 at one point in the 2nd quarter.Let’s start off with the highlights, since they always start automatically:
Behind me at the desk was the assistant coach of this towns’ team doing his work – you know Italians don’t work 9 to 5 – it is more like 10 to 12 and 3 to whenever they want to go home.
Of course he was asking me every 5 minutes what the score was and when it came down to the last 5 minutes we both watched the whole game on Euroleague TV. Well I don’t have to explain the whole last 5 minutes – we all know it was a close game, although I think Siena gave the game away already at that point – Especially Stonerook’s base line jumper with 6 seconds on the shot clock was Siena’s neck breaker.
But then things happened I really did not understand – and was kind of unfair to Siena but hey, if you have experienced the things I have experienced in Italy, you also would be happy – even if CSKA Moscow wins in the end.
Just a general note – as a referee you really REALLY should not decide a game by making non obvious calls in the last minute at all. You ruin the game! This isn’t basketball anymore. They had to show the slow motion 3 times to see that Sato touched Siskauskas’ elbow while he was taking the three pointer. Moscow did not even try to get to the free throw line – they just wanted to send this into overtime.
But thanks to the referee, Siskauskas went to the line and of course made his three free thows – giving Siena 3 seconds to do something with the ball – well they didn’t.
But as I said – I don’t feel bad at all – I am just waiting for Ettore Messina’s next blog entry: “Thanks ref!”
