ASVEL fought until the end but was unable to pull off a late comeback
Armoni Brooks inspired absence-affected Milan to third straight win
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 10 of 38
Regular Season
EA7 Emporio Armani MilanEA7
8072
LDLC ASVEL VilleurbanneASV
Overview
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It’s fair to say that EA7 Emporio Armani Milan’s preparations for Wednesday’s home meeting with LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne were far from ideal.
Firstly, the Italian team lost two of its most experienced players – Marko Guduric and Zach LeDay – through injury. Then a flu bug swept through the camp, forcing Shavon Shields and Ousmane Diop to miss the game and also depriving Milan of its coach, as Ettore Messina retired to his sick bed and assistant Peppe Poeta stepped up to lead the team into action.
Any concerns, however, that Milan would be adversely affected by all those absences were quickly dispelled as Armoni Brooks scored the first 5 points, before big man Josh Nebo emphatically announced his return from injury with a bone-crunching put-back slam for a 7-0 lead.
Milan proceeded to lead throughout the game to secure a third straight win… but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Committing 14 turnovers and allowing ASVEL to grab 14 offensive rebounds kept the visitors well and truly in the game, and the 80-72 outcome wasn’t decided until the final few seconds as the home fans inside Unipol Forum were forced to endure a nervous finale.
The biggest plus of the night for the hosts was a stellar performance from Brooks, who netted a career-high 23 points on 5-of-8 shooting from three-point range, also adding 6 assists for another personal best.
The 27-year-old guard, now in his second season with Milan, admitted it was far from a perfect performance by his team but emphasized its mental durability during a game that provided plenty of hair-raising moments as ASVEL kept on fighting.
“We’ve been building some momentum, so my biggest thing was being consistent and being resilient,” Brooks said. “It’s not gonna always go the way we want it to go, but we’ve got to stick together, bounce back from tough situations and keep pushing forward.
“There’s always room for improvement, I feel like we had a lot of live ball turnovers that led to either buckets on the other end or fouls, so we’ve got to clean that up.”
Fellow guard Leandro Bolmaro also excelled with a combination of 15 points and 8 rebounds, but he was quick to pinpoint the other area in urgent need of improvement by Milan before Friday’s showdown with Olympiacos Piraeus: “Box out, oh my God! Offensive rebounds were unbelievable for them,” he lamented. “So we have to box out and make sure we get these balls, so we can run and don’t give them second opportunities.”
Overall, though, it was a positive evening for a Milan team which led from start to finish, and Poeta – who is widely tipped to eventually permanently succeed Messina as head coach – had no complaints.
“I have to congratulate my guys, they gave everything on the court in a tough situation without some important players,” he said. “It was not an easy one, but we were leading all the game and were clinical at the end to close it.”
ASVEL was also missing important components, with Nando De Colo, Edwin Jackson and Thomas Heurtel joined on the absentee list by Shaquille Harrison, who suited up but did not play a single second as coach Pierric Poupet called on just nine players.
The ASVEL boss was in no mood to make excuses, though, as he admitted: “We did not stick to the game plan, especially on the personnel. We left Brooks open three times and he scored. We don’t have enough personnel and talent to play randomly, so we’ll have to do better next time.”
