Olimpia took over in the fourth quarter and defeated the hottest EuroLeague team, Partizan Belgrade, at home on its way to the sixth consecutive win, 76-62. Olimpia’s defense was outstanding once more. Partizan started hot, scored 10 early points, then had 52 the rest of the game, for 35 minutes. Olimpia struggled offensively in the first half, made three three-pointers out of 14 but managed to get to the intermission up by one, scratching and willing itself to get rebounds, at-the rim shots, doing all the little things. “The second half was different, we were really disciplined in putting the ball in the right hands, creating shots for Billy Baron, going underneath with the bigs, Brandon Davies had a huge second half, or to the point guards in pick and roll situations. Napier and Pangos controlled the tempo pretty much all night long. Finally, Tonut gave us 13 huge defensive minutes. I guess Kevin Punter never scored against him,” Coach Messina said.

The third quarter was a fistfight, with the two teams exchanging blows after blows, then with the game tied, Shabazz Napier made a huge three at the buzzer that started to decisive run. Olimpia started the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run, Coach Obradovic used a time-out and Olimpia had another 5-0 run, forced 24-second shot-clock violations repeatedly and built a 15-point lead several times.

Billy Baron and Brandon Davies scored 14 points each. Davies had 12 in the second half when the other bigs had all foul troubles. Kevin Pangos had 10 points and seven assists, some of them really impressive in the first half when Partizan defense was extremely aggressive over the guards. Napier had 10 points himself, four assists and some clutch plays. He made the last-second third quarter shot that gave Olimpia the lead for good, then started the fourth with a huge drive at the rim. Nicolò Melli added nine points and eight rebounds. He was a presence and became Olimpia’s all-time best rebounder, surpassing Kaleb Tarczewski.