Monaco narrowly escapes against Strasbourg

Three days after a beautiful 3^e A place won in the Final Four Euroleague in Kaunas, AS Monaco narrowly escaped at the start of the playoffs against SIG Strasbourg (88-84) for the first leg of the quarter-finals.

The GIS takes place collectively but does not break

In the cozy atmosphere of a very sparse Gaston Médecin room, where you could even hear what the players were saying to the referees (we are far from the atmosphere of match 5 against Maccabi!), AS Monaco missed his start to the game. Léopold Cavalière was very active on both sides of the field and took advantage of the great Monegasque largesse on the rebound and on the defensive withdrawal. Under the eyes of his friend Kevin Durant, back on the rock, Mike James, a bit apathetic, was dominated in his matchup against Marcus Keene (12 points at halftime). Like its leader, the Monegasques clearly seem to lack energy and were 8 points behind (16-24) at the end of the first quarter.

A better face of ASM in the second half

Collectively, the Alsatians offered a well polished basketball but were unfortunately too expensive to widen the gap (7 stray balls after only 15 minutes). The beautiful first half of the SIG did not translate to the scoreboard (38-39, 20′).

The body language was different at the start of the third quarter which started with two award-winning shots from Jaron Blossomgame and Jordan Loyd. The little hot shot of the latter, best player of the match on the Monegasque side (19 points at 4/5 from 3-pointers in 23 minutes), allowed the Roca Team to pass in front and then make a first short break (57-51 ).

The SIG in the game until the end

But the SIG quickly picked up thanks to a timely move to zone defense which disrupted the Monegasque attack. Strasbourg even took the lead by one point after three quarters on a new basket from Léo Cavalière (10 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists).

Unfortunately for them, the Alsatians were still a little too expensive in attack, with 19 stray balls. They missed a lot of open shots, especially from Matt Mitchell and DeAndre Lansdowne who didn’t have their usual flare.

Yoan Makoundou, after a delicate passage in the first half, came back into play and brought his juice in defense (4 rebounds, 1 against and 1 interception in 6 minutes). Mike James and Elie Okobo, discreet until then, found their basketball to ensure victory for Monaco. But how complicated it was! The appointment is made for the return match at Rhénus on Friday at 6 p.m.