A night to remember in a sold-out, incandescent Mediolanum Forum. Olimpia hit the ground running, played a superb first quarter, went behind momentarily in the second period and then built an intense, no-non sense game and closed the deal, 94-82. It was the best offensive game of the best-of-seven series that Olimpia is now leading 2-1 with Game 4 scheduled to be played on Tuesday night in Milano again. Olimpia led 19-10, the lead reached 12 points in the second half. When Bologna attempted a comeback, led especially by Milos Teodosic and a superb Daniel Hackett (18 points, six rebounds, five assists, 9-for-10 from the line), Olimpia had all the answers.
“The second unit was crucial tonight, they almost tied the first unit effort,” Coach Ettore Messina remarked. Jerian Grant for example had an incredible game, scoring 14 points over 18 minutes, with no turnovers and two steals. During a crucial juncture of the game in the third quarter, he scored eight consecutive points and kept the lead intact for Olimpia. Paul Biligha in the first half and Tommaso Baldasso in the second gave the team another lift. Then, while Shavon Shields had a terrific impact on the game, with a 12-point first quarter (he finished with 19 points and seven rebounds, on top of chasing Teodosic all over the floor), Nicolò Melli was at his best, both defensively as usual and offensively. He was great at playing with three fouls in the second half whil guarding Toko Shengelia. His array of fadeaways built his 22-point in 20 minutes effort. “He was big because he made Shengelia work at both ends of the floor. We need to attack him to keep him from resting on defense and being ready on offense,” Coach Messina added.
The game was very intense, Olimpia won te crucial rebounding battle 35-30 (Hines, Datome, Melli and Hall all grabbed five boards), shot better from two and from three, with 11 made, a series-high. “Grant on top of scoring a lot, brought the ball up a lot, like Hall and Baldasso did. That saved energy for Rodriguez. At the same time we entered into the offense smoothly. It was important,” Messina said.
