He “cleaned” Valencia and Monaco remained in the top four

With several runs in the third and fourth periods, Monaco defeated Valencia 90-79 in the Principality for the 30th game of the Euroleague and, with a record of 20-10, remained in the privileged fourth place of the standings, leaving the “Bats” at 14-16 and at -1 from the privileged eight to firmly claim its qualification for the playoffs.

Saša Obradović’s men had the lead for almost the entire duration of the match and lost it on few occasions, steadily increasing it in the second half and reaching up to +17.

The leaders of the Monegasques were Okobo, Blasongame with 14 and Strazel with 13 points. For the Levantines, Jones stood out with 17, Dublijevic with 15 and Puerto with 11 points.

The match

The two teams had found offensive pluralism at the beginning of the match and the lead changed hands with +2 in the first five minutes. Jones led a 6-0 Bats run to make it 8-14, but that’s when Blossomgame took matters into his own hands and, with a personal 4-0 run, cut to -2. Jones again took the “baton” in scoring for the Levantines and helped with a 6-0 run for the +8 Spaniards, but an 8-0 run by the Monegasques with many solutions brought it to 22-22 at the end of the first quarter.

Claver’s three-pointer put Valencia up 4 at the start of the second period, but with Blasongame leading the way, Monaco tied the score at 30-30. Strazel’s three-pointer brought +1 for Saša Obradović’s team, and the “crescendo” of the French regionals brought a 12-0 run for +11 for the home team. Ouattara’s second straight 3-pointer made it 48-36, but a 5-0 run by Valencia made it 48-41 at halftime. Monaco had 12/14 shots and 20 rebounds and Valencia 7/12 two-pointers, 9/9 shots and 18 rebounds.

Motejunas and Strazel started a 10-0 run for Monaco at the start of the third period and the French went to +17, holding +12 to +15 in that period, despite the Spaniard’s 3-pointers. Dublijevic led a 7-0 run for 63-56 and Montenegro and Webb reduced to -6 and -5 respectively, but Okobo took the situation into his own hands and with correct choices on the Spanish racket brought it 71-64 to completion of thirty minutes.

Monaco with the right options inside the opponent’s racket maintained a +4 to +6 against the Spanish perimeter shots at the start of the fourth period. Saša Obradović’s players went on a 9-0 run with offensive pluralism to reach 82-69 and maintain +11 to +13 in that period. Diallo made it 90-76 and Harper’s 3-pointer made it 90-79.

The quarters: 22-22, 48-41, 71-64, 90-79

The statistics