It took a lot of heart, chemistry and desire to win in Varese 74-70, barely 36 hours removed from the Barcelona game. Olimpia was playing without the head coach Ettore Messina, who was sick and subbed by Mario Fioretti; without Nikola Mirotic, Maodo Lo, Johannes Voigtmann and Pippo Ricci. Billy Baron returned after almost six months off and Kyle Hines for the first time was used in an Italian league game. And he was huge. He set the tone defensively and made a couple of big plays at the end when a line-up featurin Melli, Tonut, Hall and Shields erected the wall and kept Varese from scoring. So, Olimpia took the lead off six points by Shields and saved the win with defense. Over the last few seconds, Stefano Tonut made four consecutive free throws.

Varese played with a lot of aggressiveness. When Olimpia extended its lead to 11 in the second quarter, Varese answered with a 12-0 run and managed to tie the score up at the half. In the third quarter again, Varese built a five-point lead that Olimpia erased when Giordano Bortolani made a huge three from the corner. And in the fourth quarter, it was Shields to tie the game up when Varese attempted to get away one more time. Shields finished with 25 points over 26 minutes with his customary five made threes. Hines had plus 17 in his 23 minutes on the court. But just like in Barcelona, it was a team effort and everybody helped, Bortolani made two huge threes; Tonut made his free throws and defended well as always; Devon Hall missed a couple of shots that he normally makes but was all over the floor; Guglielmo Caruso also contributed with his energy inside.