Olimpia’s defense did it again. Holding Fortitudo to 26 points combined during the two middle quarter, Olimpia built its 14th Italian league win, a 74-64 triumpg, obtained in spite of not using three key players as Sergio Rodriguez, Malcolm Delaney and Kyle Hines. Coach Ettore Messina started Devon Hall as a point-guard and implemented several never-seen-before line-ups. When Trey Kell left the game with a knee injury two minutes into the game, Olimpia used extensively its Italian players and they responded. “I’m happy because they won the game for us, not just the usual guys, Melli, Datome or Ricci, but Baldasso, Alviti and Biligha,” Messina said. Troy Daniels was sharp early in the game making a couple of threes, Ben Bentil broke the game open early in the second half, but the second unit did a hell of a job througout the game, at both ends of the floor. Davide Alviti made three threes. The energy level was there. The defense too. Olimpia opened up a 15-point lead in the fourth, then a couple of mistakes allowed Fortitudo to reduce the margin, but the outcome was definitely under control. Gigi Datome led the scorers with 15 points. Olimpia made 12 threes, Bentil and Alviti scored in double figure too.