Olimpia came back from 14 point down in the middle of the third quarter, went up by seven, went down again by two after a huge Charles Jenkins’ corner three but responded one more time and won 90-88 over Khimki in Moscow. Vlado Micov’ kiss of death gave Olimpia the lead for good, the defense made one great stop after 15 straight minutes very good, Mike James made his free throws and a defensive rebound on an intentional Alexey Shved’s miss from the line clinched the sixth road win of the season. Olimpia trailed for 25 minutes, but responded after going down by 14 and a time-out. James Nunnally made two baskets and one assists to bring Olimpia within eight. In the fourth, Milan took control, used a suddenly unstoppable Kuzminskas and looked ready to cruise to the win. Not so fast: Malcolm Thomas scored twice from point-blanck, Shved made a three in his impressive return and Khimki got the lead back. Olimpia had all the answered, with five players in double figures, a phenomenal game by Kaleb Tarczewski and a lot of key plays from a lot of guys including a superior defensive effort late in the game (Khimki scored 34 points in the second half). “It is a great win because my players stayed mentally in the game. We attacked their switching defense in a smart way, moving the ball, and we had five players in double digits. The problem was on defense because in the beginning, but we followed the game plan and adjusted it a little bit, also playing small ball in the second half. It is really a team win tonight,” Coach Pianigiani said at the end.

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