Another on-the-go air hole for Monaco in the Euroleague. The Roca Team lost in Barcelona on Friday during the 25th day (80-70), their fifth defeat in their last six away matches. A costly setback against a direct competitor in the race for the first four places, which provide home advantage in the quarter-finals.
The Principality team fell to 5th place in the regular season, now two victories behind their winner of the day. In four confrontations in the Euroleague, she still hasn’t managed to hook the Blaugranas.
Guided by Tomas Satoransky (15 pts), Barça led the whole game, except for the 1st minute (2-4), and counted up to 15 lengths ahead just after the break (56-41, 21st). The Roca Team, still clumsy like Elie Okobo (9 pts, 2/8 in shooting), however raised their tone in defense and nibbled away behind. When she came back to 66-62 (34th), the whistles of the Palau Blaugrana expressed all the concern of the Catalan public.
Except that this Monaco does not currently exude great serenity. Like last week during her unexpected elimination in the quarter-finals of the Leaders Cup against Bourg-en-Bresse (102-92), she was overtaken by her nervousness, in particular her figurehead Mike James (14 pts to 6 /11, 3 pd, 4 bp).
The star leader lost two balls in a row, started talking in full action with his coach Sasa Obradovic and once again went crazy, swinging the ball in rage towards the billboards after a Barcelona basket. The Catalans took the opportunity to widen the gap again (74-65, 37th) and bend the game.
At the exit of the floor, Jordan Loyd did not hide his annoyance at the microphone of the broadcaster Skweek: “There is a lot of frustration. We are living through complicated weeks. We’re still learning and we lost our focus on the end, it’s something that happens to us in every game. We lose our minds. We are a good team but we are not mature enough. »