This time, Olimpia led the game right from the beginning and finished with a domination, 85-66, that tied the serie up at 1-1 before moving to Milan for Games 3 and 4. It was a collective effort that started with turning the rebounding battle around, compared to Game 1. “We were dominated on the board in the first game but all the player made a huge effort to make up for this,” Coach Ettore Messina said pointing out to what the perimeter playerd did. Armoni Brooks, who started the game and led the scorers with 20 points, had six rebounds; Leandro Bolmaro added four; Shavon Shields was all over the floor and grabbed seven. Olimpia led by as many as 16 points in the second quarter, riding a sequence that was started by a Nikola Mirotic three-point play and included a Nico Mannion’s three and another by Mirotic. Bologna had two good moments in the game. With the first, it reduced the margin from 16 to seven (nine at the half); with the second, in the third period, again a 16-point commanding lead was reduced to six points. “In that moment, we had serious forul trouble with the big men: Ousmane Diop gave us a big lift, with his energy and helped the offense dictating the traffic from the high post position,” Coach Messina added.
Olimpia responded again to the Bologna’s rally that obviously inflammed the notoriously hot arena. Shields was a surgeon all night long in picking his spots and the possessions to step up. Zach LeDay made a couple of mid-range pull-up jumper. Olimpia was still ahead by eight points entering in the fourth period. After Shields made a three, Armoni Brooks took definitely over, with a pull-up jumper, a couple of long-distance shots. Olimpia extended the lead and was able to close the game comfortably. On top of winning the crucial rebounding battle, Olimpia’s defense held Bologna to a 2-for-12 three-point shooting night, forced 15 turnovers, while the offense was much more locked in. Olimpia shot over 61 percent on twos and made 10 threes. Shield scored 14 points, Mirotic added 14 himself in spite of playing just 19 minutes for foul troubles and Nico Mannion had his best game of the playoffs so far, scoring 11 points and dishing three dimes.
“It was a much better Game 2 – Messina said – However, the margin is deceiving. The series is still tied, they are a great team and the Milano’s games will be hard. It will be important for us to keep the intensity up. Shooting can go up and down easily, but in order to win the series we must stay intense defensively and controlling the boards.” Olimpia’s coach wanted to say something about Armoni Brooks. “He is a guy that paid a price for making his European debut in a physical competition in a different type of basketball. But every day he makes strides and not only he can score points, he is giving us energy, rebounds, defense too. This kind of growth is encouraging not just for today but for our future too.”.
