Olimpia established its energy early, scoring off offensive rebounds three times in a row in the opening three possessions. It was a signal. In the end, it was a dominating win, 83-52, essentially never in doubt against a Valencia team missing its point guard Chris Jones and with his back up, Stefan Jovic, forced to sit on the bench after a few plays. “We have to acknowledge that they were missing a couple of key players and we know what that means. However, we played a complete game. We started aggressive and the second unit gave us a big push in the second quarter,” Coach Ettore Messina said.
Olimpia started the game 6-0 with Nikola Mirotic setting the tone, with his inside-outside game, his early offensive rebounds. Valencia tried to stay close, got back within one and Olimpia responded once more and took a commanding 16-point lead in the second period with Diego Flaccadori and Stefano Tonut and Kyle Hines to lead the second unit. Valencia managed to close the half, behind by 13, theoretically still in the game. Maodo Lo led tha charge in the second half. The early portion of the third quarter put the game to rest. “Maodo Lo and Diego Flaccadori were great at complementing each other. Flaccadori push the ball in open court, Lo was great at reading the half court situations,” Coach Messina pointed out. Lo had 10 points and six assists.
Mirotic scored 12 points in the first quarter, 19 at the end. He rested the entire fourth quarter along Nicolò Melli who set the tone defensively. Olimpia’s defense was great for 40 minutes, regardless of who was playing. Alex Poythress fought foul trouble all night but made his presence felt in the middle. Valencia was forced to 19 turnovers and shot under 30 percent from the field. Incredibly, Olimpia won by 32 during a Shavon Shields’ scoreless night. He took seven shots, missed them all and were hits shots. It was one of those nights for him. “We could never imagine to win a game with Shields not scoring at all, but he stayed in the game mentally, kept defending hard, moved the ball and took the shots he had to take and that makes him happy,” Messina said.
