Italian Stars Face Off As Raptors Visit Garden
Jan 14 2010 9:17PM
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Italian superstars Danilo Gallinari and Andrea Bargnani face off at The Garden.
Italian forward Danilo Gallinari hasn’t been able to find his shooting rhythm over the previous few games, but that could change when the Knicks honor his heritage Friday night at The Garden.
With the Toronto Raptors coming to town, Gallinari will face his fellow countrymen Andrea Bargnani and Marco Belinelli for the first time this season during Italian Heritage Night. And you can be sure that Gallo wants to put on a good show while Italy is paying close attention to this memorable matchup featuring three Italian-born players.
“It’s refreshing to see,” Mike D’Antoni said after Thursday’s practice. “It’s great.”
The Knicks head coach was born in West Virginia and played three seasons in the NBA before continuing his basketball career in Italy. D’Antoni, who became a star overseas, began to believe that Italian players could eventually become NBA players just a few years after the 21-year-old Gallinari was born.
“I didn’t verbalize it or anything, but, yeah, you could see that the talent was getting better and the young guys were getting better,” D’Antoni said. “After ’90 or ‘92, whenever the Olympics were, you could see it was getting there.”
Fast-forward to 2008 and D’Antoni and the Knicks selected Gallinari with the sixth overall pick of the NBA Draft, only two years after Bargnani was selected first overall by the Raptors. Gallinari, who played just 28 games during his injury-plagued rookie year, has already become one of the great shooters in league and is a major reason why the Knicks are in the Eastern Conference playoff race this season.
Gallinari, the league-leader in 3-pointers made and attempted, is averaging 14.1 points on 40 percent shooting from downtown. Bargnani, who is three years older than Gallinari and at 7-feet is two inches taller than him, is averaging 17.0 points on 36.1 percent shooting from three-point range. The scouting report for both players is very similar.
“I think he’s a matchup problem for anybody,” D’Antoni said of Bargnani, who has practiced with Gallinari on the Italian national team. “He’s 7-feet and can shoot and he has a really quick first step. That’s why they score a lot of points. It’s hard to matchup with him.”
Gallinari hasn’t been able to shoot the ball at his usual rate over the past three games, averaging 7.7 points and shooting 28.6 percent from the field over the stretch. But his teammates believe playing against a couple familiar faces gets him even more hyped up for games than usual.
“Every game Gallo is pumped, but especially playing against guys from overseas, Gallo gets a kick out of that,” Nate Robinson said. “You catch them talking before the game in a different languages so it’s kind of cool. Gallo’s going to be ready and hopefully he’ll have a great game.”
The Knicks could use a strong game from Gallinari on both ends of the floor if they want to knock off Bargnani and Belinelli, who is also a good perimeter shooter.
“They’re a great outside shooting team kind of like us in a way,” Chris Duhon said. “Both of us have great big men that can go inside and score too, but a lot of our offense comes from the perimeter. So it’s going to be key for us to make them shoot shots that are contested.”
The Knicks, who edged the Sixers Wednesday to improve to 16-22, are currently two and a half games behind Toronto for second place in the Atlantic Division and one-game behind eighth-place Chicago in the East. This will be a great opportunity for them to gain some ground on the Raptors and move closer to a playoff spot.
“This is another opportunity to get one more notch up and closer to them,” D’Antoni said. “These are two game swings, one they would lose and one we would win, and vice versa.”
With the Toronto Raptors coming to town, Gallinari will face his fellow countrymen Andrea Bargnani and Marco Belinelli for the first time this season during Italian Heritage Night. And you can be sure that Gallo wants to put on a good show while Italy is paying close attention to this memorable matchup featuring three Italian-born players.
“It’s refreshing to see,” Mike D’Antoni said after Thursday’s practice. “It’s great.”
The Knicks head coach was born in West Virginia and played three seasons in the NBA before continuing his basketball career in Italy. D’Antoni, who became a star overseas, began to believe that Italian players could eventually become NBA players just a few years after the 21-year-old Gallinari was born.
“I didn’t verbalize it or anything, but, yeah, you could see that the talent was getting better and the young guys were getting better,” D’Antoni said. “After ’90 or ‘92, whenever the Olympics were, you could see it was getting there.”
Fast-forward to 2008 and D’Antoni and the Knicks selected Gallinari with the sixth overall pick of the NBA Draft, only two years after Bargnani was selected first overall by the Raptors. Gallinari, who played just 28 games during his injury-plagued rookie year, has already become one of the great shooters in league and is a major reason why the Knicks are in the Eastern Conference playoff race this season.
Gallinari, the league-leader in 3-pointers made and attempted, is averaging 14.1 points on 40 percent shooting from downtown. Bargnani, who is three years older than Gallinari and at 7-feet is two inches taller than him, is averaging 17.0 points on 36.1 percent shooting from three-point range. The scouting report for both players is very similar.
“I think he’s a matchup problem for anybody,” D’Antoni said of Bargnani, who has practiced with Gallinari on the Italian national team. “He’s 7-feet and can shoot and he has a really quick first step. That’s why they score a lot of points. It’s hard to matchup with him.”
Gallinari hasn’t been able to shoot the ball at his usual rate over the past three games, averaging 7.7 points and shooting 28.6 percent from the field over the stretch. But his teammates believe playing against a couple familiar faces gets him even more hyped up for games than usual.
“Every game Gallo is pumped, but especially playing against guys from overseas, Gallo gets a kick out of that,” Nate Robinson said. “You catch them talking before the game in a different languages so it’s kind of cool. Gallo’s going to be ready and hopefully he’ll have a great game.”
The Knicks could use a strong game from Gallinari on both ends of the floor if they want to knock off Bargnani and Belinelli, who is also a good perimeter shooter.
“They’re a great outside shooting team kind of like us in a way,” Chris Duhon said. “Both of us have great big men that can go inside and score too, but a lot of our offense comes from the perimeter. So it’s going to be key for us to make them shoot shots that are contested.”
The Knicks, who edged the Sixers Wednesday to improve to 16-22, are currently two and a half games behind Toronto for second place in the Atlantic Division and one-game behind eighth-place Chicago in the East. This will be a great opportunity for them to gain some ground on the Raptors and move closer to a playoff spot.
“This is another opportunity to get one more notch up and closer to them,” D’Antoni said. “These are two game swings, one they would lose and one we would win, and vice versa.”
