Barça is visited in the tough ‘ER’ in Monaco
BARCELONA, 13 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Barça visits AS Monaco this Wednesday at the Salle Gaston Medecin (7:00 p.m.) on matchday 13 of the Regular Phase of the Euroleague, a duel to which the blaugrana arrive touched by the unexpected last continental defeat and in which they will run into some Monegasques that, seconds, are in full triumphant streak.
After beating Real Madrid at the WiZink Center (94-95) and achieving four victories in the last five games, Sasa Obradovic’s AS Monaco is second with a 9-3 record, one more victory than Barça, who, fifth, lost steam with the loss at the Palau Blaugrana against then bottom club ASVEL Villeurbanne (74-75).
Different environments in two teams that share the goal of being in the ‘Final Four’ of this Euroleague. So Barça pursues that cliché that there is no better cure than a prestigious victory after an unforeseen setback. Undoubtedly, assaulting the Monegasque fiefdom would make the blaugrana return home recovered.
In a fresh duel still in the Euroleague, Barça won last year in their first face-to-face against Monaco 81-85 in the Principality (after extra time) and 88-83 at the Palau. Two adjusted results that could be repeated again, this time.
“Monaco have a great team and have made an impressive start to the season. They have the same coach and the same system, and it will be one of the most difficult games. But we have to think more about ourselves and improve our basketball”, Jasikevicius valued in the previous.
And it is that the Blaugrana coach considers that they must improve in attack and defense. “Although it doesn’t seem like it, in attack we are not very successful. We are somewhat irregular, we must also improve consistency in defense. And not lose balls, because Monaco is number one in steals,” he added.
To try to overcome AS Monaco and get to the same 9 victories as the Monegasques in the table, the coach has the usual 13 players, although he pointed out that not all of them are “very fine”, in reference to Kyle Kuric, Sertac Sanli or Oscar Da Silva.
The truth is that the return of Nikola Mirotic to the team is not leading to a substantial improvement in results, although perhaps it is at stake. Mirotic, author of 17 points against ASVEL and 19 in ALBA Berlin’s home win (86-88), is contributing a lot and it is a matter of time before he packs up, after his long absence, with his new teammates and with the new Barca.
In Monaco there will be a new opportunity to start marking ground. Both for Mirotic and for Barça in general. Of course, they will face Mike James, always a danger when measuring the Catalans, and players like Jordan Loyd or Alpha Diallo were key to attacking WiZink and will now want to win against the whites’ eternal rival.
DATASHEET.
–EQUIPMENT.
AS MONACO: James, Loyd, Diallo, Brown and Hall –possible starting five–; Okobo, Blossomgame, Makoundou, Moerman, Motiejunas, Ouattara and Strazel.
BARÇA: Laprovittola, Satoransky, Kalinic, Mirotic and Tobey –possible starting five–; Paulí, Sanli, Vesely, Kuric, Jakobaitis, Caicedo and Nnaji.
–REFEREES: Ryzhyk, Radovic and Vilius.
–PAVILION: Salle Gaston Medecin.