Olimpia went in a hole, falling 17 points behind in the third quarter than attempted an amazing comeback, but could not get the job complete in the end and lost 81-76 in Berlin. During the fourth quarter, Olimpia had three times the opportunity to tie the score up, and every time it came up just a little short. The first time, Malcolm Delaney (12 points) made two out three free throws attempts, twice in the closing minutes two threes, one by Devon Hall and the second by Shavon Shields, were in-and-out. So Alba, who went 11-for-28 from three, mainly because of a great shooting display by Marcus Eriksson (21 points, 5-for-8 from three, but two misses came in the closing minutes when Olimpia’s defense was its old self), a dominant 42-26 rebounding advantage, saved the night. Olimpia went 6-for-23 from three, three times had a potential three-point play that was not converted with the extra-point, but mostly struggled with the big men rotation, because of foul trouble that messed up everything. Nicolò Melli had his second foul three minuets into the game and the third was called right when he re-entered the game in the second period. Ben Bentil, Pippo Ricci had foul troubles, so Coach Messina was forced to use even a two-center line-up in the second quarter with Kyle Hines (10 points) and Paul Biligha together. “They outrebounded us very seriously, which was what cost us the game – Coach Messina said -. Unfortunately, we played for one more game very low-level defense and allowed them to play easily until the middle of the third quarter. That’s when we raised our aggressiveness. We were more connected and we got a lot of stops. And like it always happens, when you play defense, you’re also more aggressive on offense. And that’s what allowed us to come back. But until that moment, we were very poor on offense. And we were, unfortunately, very inefficient defensively.”