By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
In a head-to-head battle that went down in the final quarter, AS Monaco prevailed over Zenit with an 86-77 win in their Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Round 22 meeting in St. Petersburg, to take revenge and even their regular-season series.
Mike James led the way for Monaco with 21 points and 5 assists, shortly after reaching the 3,000-point mark on Tuesday. “It was a long week”, said James post-game. “We needed to come out here and compete and I’m happy we came out with a win. I gotta stay aggressive and keep reading the defense and I was able to knock down some shots.”
Dwayne Bacon was clutch from all sides of the court to contribute 20 points and 6 rebounds., while Donatas Motiejunas overpowered Zenit in the paint to add 16 points and 8 rebounds for the winners.
Dmitry Kulagin’s tremendous effort in the third quarter (12 points in total) helped Zenit restore some of the deficit, though his efforts weren’t enough to save the day for the hosts. Jordan Mickey tapped 18 points to lead the way for the Russian side, while Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Sergey Karasev added 12 and 10 points respectively.
With three minutes to play, Mike James gave Monaco their biggest lead of the game (75-62) and from that point on there was no way for Zenit to react.
“We did the job. We controlled the game the whole time. We knew what to do at each moment”, said coach Obradovic. “I feel a bit sorry for the points difference from the first game, but anyway we should be happy with this great win”.
Zenit returned to EuroLeague action after three weeks, after last winning in Belgrade against Crvena Zvezda on December 30, but couldn’t keep their four-game streak going to fall to a 12-7 record.
Photo: EuroLeague