Olimpia goes to play in Monte Carlo to face AS Monaco in an unprecedented duel, since Monaco is competing in the EuroLeague for the first, after granting access by winning the last Eurocup edition. Tip-off is at 20:00 of Friday, December 10th. Both teams are going through a similar moment: in the EuroLeague they are coming off four consecutive defeats but both have found confidence and wins in their respective national leagues. Olimpia, in Brindisi, played at a very high defensive level (and also scored 70 points in the last three periods), Monaco won two games including the clash with Asvel Villeurbanne on Tuesday night, with a 28-point effort by Donatas Motiejunas. For Olimpia this is the beginning of a new tour de force with four games over seven days. Starting with the game in Monaco, Olimpia will play every two days, facing Brescia in the Italian League and then Panathinaikos and Real Madrid in the EuroLeague, both games at home. Kaleb Tarczewski is back, after finishing his isolation time, staying “negative” in the meantime. Dinos Mitoglou and Riccardo Moraschini are obviously out, and also Gigi Datome won’t make the trip, because of a minor injury.
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “Coming off four straight losses, this is obviously a very important and critical game for us. We face a very strong offensive rebounding Monaco team, they are good at playing one on one and Motijeunas, who had a great game this week against Villeurbanne, will a problem needed to be solved. For us, it is important to do better our own things and trying to keep doing what we did well during the last Italian league game in Brindisi”.
DEVON HALL -“We are going to play a tough road game against a very competitive Monaco team. We’ll need to play 40 minutes of high-intensity defense, while paying attention to every detail and staying together to the end”.
THE REFEREES – Borys Ryzhyk (Ukraine), Olegs Latisevs (Latvia), Aare Hallikko (Estonia).
MONACO – The team that won the Eurocup has been completely revolutionized, with the return of only Rob Gray, MVP of the championship series won against Kazan. Gray has so far played a minor role in the EuroLeague (8.4 minutes per game), but he played 35 minutes against ASVEL in the French league because Mike James was not available. James went out early in the Istanbul game in which he scored 31 points (14.8 per game, 5.0 assists are ), will open up new opportunities for him, as well as the absence of Leo Westermann. Coached by Zvezdan Mitrovic, the former Villeurbanne coach in his second stint here, Monaco is a seriously athletic team, which rarely implement the same starting line-up, alongside the only certainty that it is Motiejunas at the center spot (8.2 points per game, 57.1 percent from two). The point guard is Paris Lee (7.1 points, 2.9 assists per game); the main perimeter players are the former NBA swingman Dwayne Bacon (10.7 points per game), although he was out in the last round and then in the two ensuing league games, and the shooter Danilo Andjusic, who played the last pre-Olympic tournament with the Serbian national team and averages 8.7 points per game, shooting 40.0 percent from three; among the bigs stand out veteran Will Thomas (6.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, 38.9 percent from three), the Australian Brock Motum (who previously played for Zalgiris, Valencia and Efes) and Donta Hall, one of the best rookies in the competition: 10.1 points, 6.5 rebounds per game, shooting 71.6 percent from two. Yakuba Ouattara is a dangerous shooter, 46 percent from three this season, while forward Alpha Diallo has an important role too, playing over 20 minutes per game (7.8 points per game, 57.9 percent from two).
THE MONACO CONNECTION – Mike James played in Milan for one year during the 2018/19 season, winning the EuroLeague scoring title. That season he played 30 games with 595 points and 191 assists. Leo Westermann played for CSKA Moscow during the 2017/18 season along Sergio Rodriguez and Kyle Hines and in 2019/20 he was at Fenerbahce with Gigi Datome.
GAME NOTES – Sergio Rodriguez has made 515 threes over his career and is less three three-point away from Vassilis Spanoulis’ 518, for the second place ever. With 832 points, he also became the third scorer ever in the EuroLeague for Olimpia jersey, second in the modern era behind Vlado Micov. Kyle Hines has scored 1,132 two-point field goals in his career and is within five two-pointers shy of Ante Tomic’s second place (1,137). Rodriguez is currently sixth in assists with 4.6 per game; Gigi Datome is seventh in three-point shooting (45.95 percent); Nicolò Melli is the EuroLeague’s tenth rebounder with 5.7 per game. He has grabbed at least six rebounds in eight of his last nine games.
