The Roca Team, already defeated in the first match, suffered another heavy defeat in the second, Thursday, in the Euroleague quarter-finals.
The semi-finals are moving away. AS Monaco Basket was slapped by Olympiakos in Piraeus (94-64), Thursday April 30, for its second match of the Euroleague quarter-finals. With this defeat, the Roca Team finds itself on the verge of elimination before the third match.
The finalists of the last edition, already severely beaten 91-70 in the first match in Greece, completely lost track in the second quarter of the match, and will have no other choice but to win at home on Tuesday if they want to stay alive in their best-of-five series.
A return to Athens at the end of May, for a second Final Four in a row, now seems almost impossible for the men of the Principality, who completely gave up before the break against the best team of the regular season, led by the Bulgarian Sasha Vezenkov.
Thursday, Alpha Diallo’s teammates (10 points) held out for the first ten minutes, before a catastrophic second quarter: 31-8 in 10 minutes, a defense at bay and solutions found with formidable ease for the Greek club, like Evan Fournier, excellent (16 points, five rebounds, seven assists) and very lonely when attempting his three-point shots.
Under the eyes of Novak Djokovic and Giannis Antetokounmpo, sitting side by side to enjoy the spectacle, the Greeks played in front of ineffective Monegasques. The exclusion of Mike James, who did not really weigh (seven points), for two technical fouls concluded this end of the first period to forget.
Returning from the locker room, the locals took a break for a few minutes when the Monegasques did better offensively. But Sasha Vezenkov was still there to maintain a gap largely favorable to the three-time winners of the event, who finished with a final quarter victory 22-11. Tuesday, for match 3 (7:45 p.m.), Monaco will be at home but will have to find great resources to worry Olympiakos.
Originally published at Almouwatin.com
