Olimpia Milano is too strong, and the absences at Dinamo Sassari are too heavy. The international "City of Cagliari" tournament ends up in the hands of Ettore Messina's "Scarpette Rosse", who dominate in the PalaPirastu final (83-63) against a Banco that is still proud until the end.
Without Bendzius, Tyree, Charalampopoulos and Cappelletti, coach Bucchi has to deal with the tiredness of his team, too short to cope with the double close match. The match immediately takes the most favorable path for the Milanese, who take advantage of the effectiveness of the champion Mirotic with his back to the basket to fly to +10 already in the first quarter (17-7). Things change when Dinamo throws Diop into the fray (highly applauded by the Cagliari public), who with his energy gives new life to his teammates, capable of closing the score to -3 at the first interval (19-16).
The second quarter is the one that directs the match: EA7 finds rhythm in attack with Shields and Hall, and places a lethal break of 33-12 which leaves no escape for the Sassari players, who, in fact, have to raise the white flag already at 20 ' at 52-28.
The second half is pure academy: Milan does not struggle to maintain its advantage against a proud opponent, but too blunt to be able to question the final result.
Four players scored in double figures for Olimpia: Poythress (15), Hall (14), Shields (14) and Mirotic (12). On the other hand, however, Treier's 14 personal goals (but with 4/11 from the field), Gombauld's 13 (among the most positive) and 12 each for Diop and Whittaker were not enough.
«Against Milan you have to be perfect», commented the Sassari coach Piero Bucchi, «we weren't perfect for obvious reasons. However, the spirit was the right one, because the team never gave up in the face of obvious difficulties. We now hope to be able to recover the injured as soon as possible, also to increase the level of training. Moving forward in this way is not easy."
In the final for third place, Red Star Belgrade asserted itself, having flashes in the first half, but then beating the French team Asvel Villeurbanne 77-74. The star was the American point guard Napier, who scored 18 points with 8 assists.
