It was an almost perfect first period. Olimpia hit the ground running, made five threes, and more than anything else took away everything from the Red Star offense. The result was a 24-6 lead to close the quarter, an 18-point margin that proved to be decisive. Red Star improved during the last three periods, but couldn’t get closer than nine points. “Every time they made a run, we responde with another run,” Coach Ettore Messina pointed out at the end. Olimpia got back on track defensively, holding Red Star to 62 points on its way to a commanding 79-62 win. Olimpia’s record improved to 6-1, good for a piece of the first place. Next Thursday, FC Barcelona will come to Milan for a battle between league-leading teams.
Shavon Shields led all the scorers with 19 points, but it was the quintessential team effort. All the ten players getting on the court scored and gave something to the team. “I’m especially pleased with the help that Troy Daniels and Kaleb Tarczewski gave us,” Messina added. Daniels came off the bench and made eight quick points to keep the huge lead. He finished with 12 points in 15 minutes in essentially his second EuroLeague game after the injury that sidelined him for over a month. Tarczewski scored 10 points, was fouled a lot and in the third quarter was crucial when both Melli and Hines had to sit out with foul troubles. Hines was once more terrific, with nine rebounds, four assists and the usual dominating defense.
Congrats Kyle Hines for another milestone: he just became the fifth player to grab at least 1⃣.5⃣0⃣0⃣ rebounds for his career. 🔝🙌🏼
The legend lives on! 😎🤍❤#insieme #EuroLeague #Rebounds #SirHines@SirHines @EuroLeague pic.twitter.com/muKj6HUDVY
— Olimpia Milano (@OlimpiaMI1936) October 28, 2021
Olimpia was able to keep under control the three key players for Red Star, Nate Wolters, the point guard and best scorer, had just two points, Nikola Kalinic was held to eight points, just two in the first half, and Ognjen Kuzmic, a 70 percent inside shooter, scored three points, went 1-for-3 from the field. So Red Star had to move down the food chain to find points from Luka Mitrovic and Ognje Dobric especially. “In the second half the physicality of this game went to another level, the level of contacts in my opinion was excessive – Coach Messina said – but we kept our composure and won with a good margin against a very competitive team.” Sergio Rodriguez had eight assists, Devon Hall in his second game as a point-guard added six.
