The playoffs started on a bad note, because Olimpia was defeated at home by Avellino 82-74. Low-shooting percentage and offensive rebounding cost the game. Olimpia had a good approach, leading by seven after the first quarter, then everything broke down. All the attempts at coming back came up short, even when Olimpia was withing two points, at different times. Vlado Micov scored 23 points and led Olimpia, but mostly it was an horrible shooting night. “Defensively, we were good, but then we didn’t finish the job, because Avellino with this kind of line-up has a lot of size. We the current roster, we need to realize that winning a close game is not a sin, it’s the cold reality. Today we lost a game that could have been won, just by making a couple of threes we great shooters. We missed very open shots with our best shooters, we panicked a little too much, we panicked too easily. That’s what we need to correct in one day. There’s no reason to play worried, because all we need to do is shooting the ball the way we know how to shoot the ball. We need only one win to get our confidence back”, Coach Pianigiani said at the end. Game 2 is on Monday in Milan.