Olimpia didn’t finish the job in Trieste and lost for the first time, after 11 wins, in the Italian league, 71-68. Shorthanded, with six players out for different reasons, Gigi Datome who was supposed to start had to sit out entirely because of a warm-up injury, lost control of the game in the second part of the fourth quarter. “We built a good six-point lead, a serious one in a low-scoring game, but during the fourth quarter we made a lot of mistakes, turnovers, bad shot selection, and we lost,” Coach Ettore Messina said. Olimpia led in the second half until four minutes left on Banks’ three-pointer. The rest of the game, Olimpia scored only with 30 seconds to go with a Nicolò Melli’s tip-in who reduced the deficit to a single point. But Juan Manuel Fernandez was able to get fouled with eight seconds to go and made the two decisive free-throws. Olimpia built a good three-point shot at the end to tie the game with Troy Daniels, but it was in-and-out.

Daniels led Olimpia with 16 points and four threes, Devon Hall playing mostly as a point-guard had eight assists but was in foul trouble the entire second half, Davide Alviti had promising game, scoring 10 points and grabbing eight rebounds, Ben Bentil added 12 points and went 3-for-4 from three-point range, but overall, Olimpia shot 9-for-34 from three. Again, it was the last four or five minutes that decided the outcome of the game, when Milano was able to use its defense to stay close, but couldn’t make the shots to win the game. “Obviously, we had to protect our older players coming off a four game over a seven-day span, the last thing we need is another injury, so Delaney, Rodriguez and Hines stayed behind. Then, Gigi Datome was a late scratch and that didn’t help,” Coach Messina added.