By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Mike James made history and Monaco got a home win over Crvena Zvezda, continuing their quest for the home-court advantage in the playoffs.
The final score was 98-80 and the Serbs tried to spoil James’ party, but ultimately they fell short.
On the contrary, James managed to surpass three-time EuroLeague winner and three-time EuroLeague Final Four MVP Vassilis Spanoulis who finished his career with 4455 points.
With a total of 20 points, 13 in the first half, Monaco’s superstar has now scored 4464 points in his EuroLeague career, having won the February MVP award and aiming for his first season MVP award and his first EuroLeague title.
It was the 7th straight win of Monaco which now has a 18-10 record and can hope even for the second spot of the standings at the end of the regular season.
“We are playing well, even at bad times we stick together, we are moving the ball, playing defense and that says a lot, it’s another stepping stone on our journey and hopefully we will have much more”, said James after the game.
“It’s nice to be the coach of Mike James”, added coach Sasa Obradovic when asked if he feels nice to be the coach of Monaco, thanks to the winning streak they have.
Elie Okobo and Donatas Motiejunas scored 14 points each, Jaron Blossomgame added 12 and Donta Hall scored 10.
Luka Mitrovic with 18 points was the top scorer of the losing side which was missing Milos Teodosic due to injury, had 11 players available for the game and dropped to 10-17.
A decisive fourth-quarter start
Despite a 17-13 start by the guests, Monaco closed the first quarter with a 12-0 run in two minutes getting a 25-17 advantage.
The answer of Zvezda was back-to-back threes to start the second period (25-23). However, Monaco once again took control of the game and led by 11 (36-25), and closed the first half with an eight-point advantage (46-38).
Once again Zvezda started the second half strongly, first trimming the lead to three (46-43) with five quick points and then tying it all at 55. Still, Monaco entered the last period leading 69-60 with Dante Hall dunking at the buzzer.
Two threes by Okobo made it a 15-point game (75-60) and the game was essentially over. Monaco never looked back. “Monaco has the quality, we wanted to fight until the last moment but we have to congratulate our opponents”, admitted Zvezda coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos.
Photo credit: EuroLeague