An impressive defensive effort led by Nicolò Melli, who had a career-high six steals, allowed Olimpia to take a commanding win in Istanbul, 68-43. Olimpia led wire to wire, held Fenerbahce to a 3-point and one field goal first quarter, and when it was necessary made the offense sharp enough to take a huge lead and to never let the opponents entertain any comeback aspirations. It was a terrific, memorable win that improved Olimpia’s record to a EuroLeague-leading 8-1. Melli and Datome set the tone early, scored all Olimpia 11 points, than Melli took care of the defense and Datome made two huge threes early in the third to put the nails on the coffin. Olimpia also dominated the boards and essentially eliminated all the big Fenerbahce players from the game. Nando De Colo was held at two points scored for the night, Marko Guduric to three, Devin Booker also had two points. “I want to congratulate my players – Coach Messina said at the end – They played a very good defense and they did it for 40 minutes. We also executed well on offense at least in the first and third period. We expected a difficult game in a hot atmosphere, probably they had a bad night, but they were coming off a big win in Moscow, and for sure we had a very good night.”

Shavon Shields led the scorers with 13 points and added four assists, Sergio Rodriguez had seven assists and Kyle Hines grabbed six rebounds. Datome celebrated in the best way both his 250th EuroLeague game and his return in Istanbul in front of a crowd who gave him a well-deserved big welcome. The same response was reserved for Nicolò Melli, who put the exclamation point on a defensive masterpiece when he blocked at the rim a dunking attempt by Hazer.

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