Gianmarco Pozzecco fears the worst: 'I'll pray for Gallinari tonight' / News - Basketnews.com

Danilo Gallinari will undergo an MRI tomorrow to determine the extent of his injury. Head coach Gianmarco Pozzecco is pessimistic about the player participating in EuroBasket 2022.

Credit:

Although Italy notched an important win against Georgia in the 2023 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers last evening, the attention of the Italian national team went elsewhere.

Player of the Game EFF 25 Simone Fontecchio Points 21 Accuracy 5-11 Rebounds 8 Assists 6

Danilo Gallinari injured his knee in the beginning of the fourth quarter. The Boston Celtics forward was running to a fast break when he received the ball from Nicolo Mannion. After a few dribbles, Gallinari stumbled and grabbed his left knee. The forward did not return to the match.

Talking in the post-game press conference, the head coach of the team, Gianmarco Pozzecco, complimented both his team and the opponents but the main focus was on Gallinari.

"There is something much more important than basketball," the head coach started. "I saw in Danilo the desire and excitement of playing with this group. His teammates respect him, he is perhaps the strongest ever in Italian basketball."

"I hope to be a little too pessimistic. I know what it means to break the knee, my suffering comes from all this," Pozzecco told. "I hope he has nothing but right now he is suffering a lot. Let's all hope he has nothing."

According to the information attained by Eleven Sports Italia journalist Lorenzo Poliselli, the ligament is Gallinari's left knee, the knee that has already been operated on before, stayed intact.

Additionally, the Italian forward will undergo an MRI tomorrow to determine the extent of the injury.

"We could have won the EuroBasket with Gallinari but I'm not sorry for that. I'm simply sorry because he could not participate in the adventure he deserved," Pozzecco noted.

The head coach later expressed a similar thought that has been echoed throughout last week about extending the team rosters. "I think by now we have realized that we can no longer go on like this," he said. "I hope that we start protecting the players beginning tomorrow."

Earlier this week, Andreas Zagklis, the FIBA Secretary General, denied such a possibility. "We don't have any basketball evidence suggesting we should move in that direction," he said to BasketNews. "We believe that with 12 players, we have a good rule, and we plan to stick to that rule."

Like what we are doing? Support us by becoming BN+ member.