Olimpia Milano won the Italian basketball championship for the thirtieth time in its history. In the seventh and final match of the Scudetto finals, played on Friday evening at the Assago Forum, they beat Virtus Bologna 67-55, thus obtaining the fourth and decisive victory of the series. For Milan it is the second Scudetto in a row as well as that of the third star on the crest (one is obtained for every ten victories).
It was the third consecutive year that Olimpia and Virtus, the two best Italian teams coached respectively by Ettore Messina and Sergio Scariolo, met in the finals. In 2021 Virtus won with a clear 4-0, the so-called “coat” that Serie A hadn’t experienced since 2010. Last year, however, Olimpia had known how to take revenge by winning the Scudetto with 4 wins and 2 defeats.
This year’s finals were even more closely contested. Olimpia had started with two wins in a row at home, to which Virtus then responded by leveling the series with two home wins, one of which was in overtime. Last Monday Olimpia had taken the lead again, but on Wednesday they hadn’t managed to win the first in Bologna match point of a series in which there were no away wins.
With 16 points and 4 rebounds in 24 minutes of play, Gigi Datome was awarded as the best player of the decisive match of the finals, as had already happened last year. Milan’s other top scorers were Billy Baron (11 points) and Shavon Shields (10).
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