Olimpia hit the ground running in Bologna and never stopped in a dominating, impressive 96-74 triumph, built on defense and completed with a 11-three shooting night, great execution and intensity. Olimpia used its defense to generate transition opportunities, was sharp while executing the offense and the defense, the attention level to detail was huge, with the only exception of a three-four minutes span in the second quarter when a 16-point commading lead was reduced to six, momentarily. Olimpia led by eight at the half, then Brandon Davies exploded scoring 11 straight points to begin the third period. Any time, Virtus tried to launch a comeback Olimpia found something or somebody to push them back. In the fourth quarter when Virtus came withing eight, Nicolò Melli scored a big mid-range jumper on one end of the floor and blocked Mam Jaiteh’s attempt to dunk at the other end. “We led for the lenght of the game, often with big margins, I think offensively we consistently found different leaders while defensively we have been really good especially at protecting the paint against their big men,” Coach Ettore Messina said. Brandon Davies had a 17-point second half on his way to a game-high 23 points. Billy Baron added 17 and he scored 14 points in the second half including his customary four-point play from the corner. Tim Luwawu-Cabarrot also had 17; Nicolò Melli scored 13 points with six rebounds and an outstanding defensive effort on Toke Shengelia, but everybody really helped including Pippo Ricci who started as a nominal small forward and was great at defending Kyle Weems or even a smaller player. “Davies is consistently improving, Billy Baron is the shooter we expected him to be, Devon Hall is taking control, Luwawu-Cabarrot is really a valuable addition, as a team we clicked a little bit. Give credit to the guys because when everything looked bleak, or a win became a loss in the closing seconds, they kept working and believing. So we can wait a little to have the injured players back. However, it is just a game, now we go to Athen to play Olympiacos, not exactly the ideal place to extend our good stretch, followed by two more road games. It is a long marathon,” Coach Messina added.