By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce BEKO wasn’t playing at home and got the crucial 89-78 win over Monaco, making a huge step toward Final Four qualification.
Tarik Biberovic with 14 points and Nick Calathes with 13 and five assists led a balanced team effort for Fenerbahce which got a 2-1 lead in the series and the chance to close it at home on Friday.
“Defense was crucial for us today,” Calathes said. On a personal note, he held Mike James to 11 points on 4-13 shots. “We held a very good offensive team to I don’t know how many points. Defensively we did great, we made some stops and also made some big shots in the end. But defense was the key.”
Alpha Diallo scored 23 points for Monaco but couldn’t make things happen for the guests who are now playing for their lives in the next game.
James added seven assists to go with his 11 points.
“I would say that we made some unecessary turnovers in several situations, not just in the end,” Monaco coach Sasa Obradovic said. “We could’ve broken the game to our favor. Those things hurt us. Some easy points by them. We have to be better than this to beat this opponent.”
Three periods full of Fenerbahce
After trailing by two (21-19) in the first quarter, Fenerbahce got into the driver’s seat.
At halftime, the home team had a 47-40 lead and extended it to 11 at the end of the third (69-58). Shooting badly from the three-point line (4/18), Monaco was trailing while Fenerbahce controlled things.
Monaco finally managed to trim the lead to four (75-71) with six minutes left in the game, after a 7-0 run that included four points by Jaron Blossomgame.
After a timeout, Tariq Biberovic answered with a three-pointer, Blossomgame turned over the ball and George Papagiannis put the lead back to nine (80-71).
Monaco made it a five-point game (83-78) again only for Biberovic to make one more big shot (85-78) after losing the ball and Nigel Hayes-Davis getting it back.
Fenerbahce restored the double digits lead (89-78) after back-to-back buckets by Papagiannis and the game was over.
“It [defense] was much better,” Fener coach Sarunas Jasikevicius said. “It’s so difficult to score against them. They are such a good defensive team that we have to slow them down. There were still a lot of stuff that we could do better. This was important. We had very good defensive numbers against such a talented team. Let’s see. We need one more like this.”