A game for the ages that became a heartbreaking two-overtime loss (93-89) for Olimpia in Game 4 of the Italian league championship series. After struggling for most of the games especially at the offensive end of the floor, down by 18 points two minutes into the fourth quarter, Olimpia simply exploded offensively and defensively. The team raised a wall to protect its basket and scored 27 point over the last eight minutes. It was an incredible, epic comeback that deserved a lot more. It was started by a Shavon Shields three, but with 6:48 left in the game Bologna was still up by 17. That was when another run took place. Billy Baron made his first three of the night, Shields added another and then Ricci right after a Nicolò Melli’s steal. All of a sudden, it was a 9-0 run or 12-2 and Olimpia got within eight and Coach Scariolo had to call an alarming time-out for Bologna. Nothing changed: Ricci added one steal and scored at the rim; Napier had a steal, was fouled and went to the line to make his two free throws. In a matter of two minutes, Olimpia shrank Bologna’s lead from 17 to four. But that was not all that happened, because Virtus found a way to build a 7-0 run, started by two free throws made by Teodosic, then a Daniel Hackett’s huge three and a field goal by Cordinier. With 3:35 the game lookd over. Instead, Olimpia had a lot of heart, refused to conced the win. Datome made a mid-range fade-away, Melli added a three, Napier made another one. It was another 8-0 run and Bologna entered into the last minute clinging on a three-point lead. Olimpia’s defense came up strong again. It forced Hackett into a contested fade-away, controlled the rebound, built a Napier’s three that was short. But Olimpia with desperaton got another rebound and allowed Napier to take another attempt. A huge step-back that found the net. It was 76-76. With 20 seconds left, Bologna had one more opportunity. The defense took over again. It was overtime. Incredibly. Olimpia took finally a two-point lead. Since its defense looked insuperable, had several chances to take away. “That was when we didn’t execute properly, we had a lot of wide open three but we missed them. Their confidence was low, we let them survive,” Coach Ettore Messina pointed out. It was time for another overtime. With the defenses struggling now to keep opponents from scoring and going to the line, a sequence of plays decided the game. With Bologna again up by two, Shields was called for a traveling violation when he attempted a mid-rage fade-away and on the ensuing possession, the same Shields was called for a fifth foul, off the ball, on a Belinelli cut toward midcourt. So with two free throws, Bologna had a four-point lead and Olimpia after losing Melli to fouls was shorthanded to finished the game. On top of that, Kyle Hines had been out for a while in the second half because of a left shoulder injury. “We missed a great chance to get the third win – Coach Messina said – Now, it doesn’t matter, we have a Game 5 caoming up at home and we need to win on Monday, trying to do the good things that we made tonight for more minutes and to limit what we are not doing well enough.” Shields led the scorers with 26 points and added nine rebounds over 44 minutes of a memorable losing effort; Nicolò Melli had 12 points and 11 rebounds; Shabazz Napier had eight assists to go with 16 points. The series is tied 2-2 and Game 5 is scheduled to be played on Monday night in Milan.