Still without the injured Shields, Pangos, Hall and DatomeOlimpia Milano beats 83-62 Olympiakos with a great collective performance. The first of the class surrenders at the Assago Forum to the tenacious defense of Melli and his companions, to the aim of Baron and to the poor streak of its leader Alexander Vezenkovone of the eligible MVPs of this Euroleague.
The match report
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Olimpia immediately shows excellent defensive attitude and exploits in attack Baron’s vein in shooting and Melli’s energy under the knife (12-7). Papanikolaou lets the guests into the game, who however end the first quarter down on the score (20-17). In the second period we score even less, the defenses are the protagonists and a couple of excellent plays can be worth the stretch. Messina finds lifeblood from the incoming Italians: Ricci and Tonut they keep their energy up in defense and find important points in attack. Napier he puts intensity into it and takes on many responsibilities, but his shooting problems prevent Milan from taking advantage of the positive wave. Thus at the interval iThe lead over the Greeks is just three points (35-32).
In the second half Milan immediately forced Fall to a third foul, canceling the disadvantage under the scoreboards. A superb dunk by Voigtmann on an assist from Luwawu-Cabarrot gasses the Forum together with two contested matches. The French also scores the basket of maximum advantage (44-34), maximizing the positive moment. If the third period has often been fatal for Milan, this time he exploits it to build his advantage: the triples by Baron and Voigtmann are worth the extension up to the 61-46 at the end of the third quarter, culminating in the buzzer of an excellent Pippo Ricci. In the final period, the Greeks made up for it up to -12 (70-58), but Olimpia managed the only difficult moment of the match without too many worries. Milan wins a game that feeds the residual hopes of the playoffs, allowed mostly by mathematics, but above all it increases regrets for a European season that could and should have been very different. Double engagement next week against Valencia and Partizan can say more.
scoreboard
Olympia Milan: Baron 18, Melli 10
Olympiakos: Walkup, Vezenkov 10
