Two days after winning on the Olympiakos floor, Monaco scored another victory against a Greek team, this Friday in the Principality during the 8th day of the Euroleague, this time dominating Panathinaikos (92-84). The fifth victory this season in the competition for the Monegasques, who move up to 4th place.
Greek clubs did well in Monaco this week. On Wednesday evening, the Monegasques achieved the feat of winning on the Olympiakos floor (92-87), thus forgetting their third defeat in the Euroleague this season, suffered the previous day against Hapoel Tel-Aviv on the road. Friday, the calendar had reserved for Vassilis Spanoulis’ players a new opposition against a Greek team, in this case Panathinaikos, 4th in the ranking before this 8th day. Except that this time, the match was played on the floor of the Principality players.
And the latter took advantage of the reunion with their public to string together a second victory (92-84), the second in three days, and add a fifth to their tally, more favorable than ever (five victories for three defeats). Led in particular by a very good Elie Okobo on Friday evening on the floor of the Gaston-Médecin room, the Roca Team set the tone from the start during a first quarter quite clearly dominated (27-20) by the former Eurocup winners, who entered the game much better than their opponents and who returned to the locker room with a mattress still quite comfortable (50-41).
Nunn was not enough for Panathinaikos
In the wake of an excellent Kendrick Nunn, by far the best scorer of the game (26 points), the “Pana”, who at one time had a gap of almost twenty points, gradually reduced his deficit, to come back at the end of the match to less than ten points from Monaco after having managed to reverse the situation one last time in the last period, which Juan Hernangomez (13 points) and his team even allowed themselves to win.
Mike James, author of 13 points on Friday, and his teammates (Matthew Strazel scored 12 points, Jarom Blossomgame, 11) kept eight lengths ahead at the finish and found 4th place in the ranking, while his victim of the evening slipped to 6th place. An ideal evening in short, just like the week of the Monegasques, who would probably like to face the Greeks more often.
