By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
A few days after he officially signed a contract extension with Barcelona, Dante Exum scored a career-high 22 points and grabbed five rebounds to lead the Blaugrana past AS Monaco 87 – 83.
Exum dropped eight of his points in the last three minutes while Barca repelled a Monaco comeback from down 16. He hit the go-ahead basket for the 76 – 75 and made a pair of free throws for the 80 – 78 with 1:39 remaining. He then scored four straight from the charity stripe to put Barca up 88 – 83 in the last seconds and secure the fifth straight win for his team.
“We knew it was going to be a tough match even when we got up a little early,” Exum said. “But they fought back and I am glad we were able to get the win. I am glad I decided to stay here. They have been lovely to me, so I would love to stay here and win some more of these games like this.”
Nick Calathes contributed 10 points and six dimes to become the new EuroLeague all-time leader in assists. The Barca star climbed to 1,612 assists and passed former Greek national team teammate Vassilis Spanoulis who retired with 1,607.
“I have been very blessed to have the coaches I have had and the teammates that I have had, so it goes to them, also, for making the game easy for me on the court,” Calathes said on his new milestone. “Obviously, it is a great honor and I am happy.”
Mike James posted 19 points and six assists, Dwayne Bacon scored 16 and Donatas Motiejunas finished with 14 points and seven rebounds for Monaco that came back from a 16-point deficit but wasn’t able to finish the job in the end.
Barca was up 57 – 41 in the mid of the third period but Bacon drained three 3-pointers in the last two minutes of the quarter to bring Monaco close 66 – 62. Motiejunas tied the match at 66 and James put the visiting squad up 70 – 73 with five minutes to play.
The two teams traded blows until Barca made a 5 – 0 run to get an 83 – 78 advantage with less than a minute to play. It proved to be enough to keep the hosts safe.
“We fought, and this is what is most important for me,” Monaco coach Sasa Obradovic said. “In the end, we maybe paid the price of our lack of experience, because in the end, we made so many mistakes. Against someone like Barcelona at home, it is very hard to catch them, even be in a closer situation to win.”
A team to not be underestimated
Barcelona coach Sarunas Jasikevicius was at least pleased with how his players closed the game against a Monaco squad that has been in particularly top form over the last couple of weeks.
“We relaxed when we went up 12-13,” Jasikevicius said. “We cannot let these guys get going. They are incredibly talented offensive players and some of them, like Bacon, like Mike [James], they change the game by themselves sometimes. I am glad we gathered ourselves and pulled it out. But let’s not forget, this team has won eight of its last 10 games, so they are on a roll, playing very good basketball. They are very, very talented. The next game is our mentality. We will play 15-16 games in the next month, the schedule is like this. We just have to move on to the next one and try to survive… I wanted to say thanks to our fans and wanted to congratulate them and our players on a great win.”