By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The dynamic duo of Mike James (22 p. 4 as.) and Daniel Theis (22 p. 5 r.) got the job done on offense, Monaco played great defense after the first quarter, and eventually got the 97-80 win over Barcelona to start their Turkish Airlines EuroLeague playoffs series.
Elie Okobo added 19 points, Matthew Strazel had 13, and Mem Jaiteh scored 10.
“It’s about showing effort in the playoffs, you know, there’s a lot of intercity on both ends and we demonstrated great character, even when they made a run”, said Okobo after the final buzzer.
For Theis, the 22 points are a EuroLeague career high in the playoffs.
Barcelona couldn’t do much with Kevin Punter scoring 16 points, Yousoupha Fall adding 13, and Dario Bruzuela having 13 more.
Due to their injuries, the guest had two players coming from the junior team in their active roster, with Raul Villar and Mathieu Grujicic, both born in 2007, closing the game on the court.
When Monaco took control in the third period, they simply proved to be the better team and never looked back.
A third-quarter turnaround
Barcelona opened the game admirably, jumping to a 14-8 lead and closing the first period up by four (25-21).
However, Monaco found their defense in the second period, keeping Barcelona to 13 points for nine minutes and turning things around, by getting a seven-point advantage (44-37).
The Catalans, however, closed the first half with a three by Dario Brizuela and a two-pointer by Youssoupha Fall, making it again a two-point game (44-42).
Barcelona even for the lead back, completing an 8-0 run (45-44) at the start of the third period, but that was the cue for Monaco to react.
Thanks to a suffocating defense, the hosts got their own 14-2 run to get a double-digit lead again (58-47), and with Theis and James taking over, they extended their advantage to 17 points (76-59), before Joel Parra trimmed it at the buzzer of third quarter to 15 (76-61).
The partial score of the period was 32-17 for Monaco, which pushed the lead to 19 points (80-61) to start the last quarter.
Barcelona was on the ropes and didn’t recover after that, with Tomas Satoransky getting ejected after using his elbow against Strazel.
For the record, with less than three minutes left, the guests trimmed the lead to 13 points (84-71) but couldn’t get any closer.
Photo credit: EuroLeague