By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Mike James scored the winning 3-pointer from the corner with six seconds to play and AS Monaco beat Unics Kazan 79 – 76 in a postponed game for Round 20 of the EuroLeague regular season.
O.J. Mayo had hit his fifth triple of the match to tie the score at 76 with 24 seconds remaining and cap a comeback from down 15 in the fourth period for Unics. James answered with the same currency on the other end and then a bad pass by Unics top scorer Mario Hezonja (20 points, eight rebounds) sealed the outcome of the match.
“A win always feels good, but we have a long road ahead of us,” James said. “We can’t really be satisfied. We have another game on Friday and we gotta win. [UNICS is] good. They’re gonna be fighting for the playoffs all year, so we knew they weren’t gonna just go away without a fight. They play hard. We got open looks, we just kinda missed. We played together. I think we played a good game today.”
James finished with game-highs 25 points and eight assists while Donatas Motiejunas posted 11 points plus 10 rebounds for Monaco that led 70 – 55 four minutes into the fourth period before Unics rallied to make a turnaround. The Russian side made a 2 – 15 run to approach at a shooting distance and then John Brown III pulled off a 3-point play for the 74 – 73.
Will Thomas put Monaco up 76 – 73 prior to the Mayo – James sequence in the last seconds. Monaco captured its sixth win over eight games to improve to 13 – 13 and remain in the playoff zone while Unics fell to 13 – 12.
Brown had 16 points and eight rebounds while Mayo dropped 15 points on 5-6 threes for Unics. Their team fell behind 44 – 36 at halftime after James dropped 15 points on them in the first 20 minutes.
Unics cut that margin to 61 – 55 at the end of the third period but Monaco opened the fourth quarter with a 9 – 0 run. They saw their advantage disappear but James was there to save the day.
“Congratulations to Monaco,” Unics coach Velimir Perasovic. “We had our chance, but a lot of the game we had problems scoring and finally when we found a way to score, we couldn’t close out defensive rebounds. So that was also important for the game.”
Keeping the playoffs dream alive
EuroLeague newcomer Monaco became another postseason contender over the last couple of weeks but there’s still a long road ahead and some tough battles approaching, as coach Sasa Obradovic mentioned.
“Of course, I’m happy,” Obradovic said. “We lost a lot of games like this at the end, even recently against Real Madrid in two overtimes. We could finish what was in our hands today. We were more lucky and I would say great win. The hope is still there. We dream about top eight, but the best opponents are coming, so we should be ready.”