SIENA Simone Pianigiani is ready to do war, but also aware of how the playoff series is now an uphill battle for Mens Sana. He explains, “Wednesday, even before the final minutes, and even playing well and even better than the away team, we got less than usual from the entire team. There was no distribution of points and responsibility among the various players like we usually have, and that’s a fundamental aspect in games like this. In fact, we got to the end with very little oxygen in key elements and getting little from others. Our current non homogenous state weighed in. Even lavrinovic was out of the game because of fouls and physical condition. However, let’s not forget that we were ahead for 35 minutes and little was needed to keep a lead and face the final phase more calmly. It didn’t happen; we’re disappointed and we feel guilty about it because we could have kept the lead we’d created, seeing as though we were up by 10 the final quarter and that’s the best you can hope for in a challenge like this. Now, we’re aware that Olympìacos has more energy than us to take this all the way and, more importantly, to take the whole series, given that they are fresher and have the home court advantage. But we need to focus on one step at a time, starting with game 2. Then we’ll see. To achieve our goal, we must express ourselves better than the Greeks for 40 minutes – not 56 or 36 like we did before. Our opponents don’t have to do much to make the difference because, right now, they’re superior on blocks, energy, offensive rebounds and various aspects that form the game.” The situation under the boards is red alarm: “Andersen really pushed himself. Michelori is out because of plantar fasciitis. We have Lechthaler to experiment with if Lavrinovìc can’t do it. We can also send in Ress as 5 along with Stonerook, so without a center but with two power forwards working together. Ksistof is still in doubt. We’ll see what happens during the day. Otherwise, we’ll just have to do things differently. Sure, considering Olympiacos’ consistency in the point, without Lavrinovic it becomes not hard but extremely hard.”