Barça corrects its ups and downs to win at the home of leader Monaco

Culé victory (84-98) on matchday 20 of the Euroleague, with a very prominent role from Brizuela

FC Barcelona won 84-98 this Thursday in its visit to AS Monaco, during matchday 20 of the Euroleague regular season and with outstanding roles from Chimezie Metu and especially Darío Brizuela, key in the fourth period to cut the reaction of the still leader of this competition, waiting for what Olympiacos does.

At the Salle Gaston-Médecin, the visitors took the lead on the scoreboard from the beginning and managed their advantage (6-15) until closing the first quarter with a favorable 17-25. All this against a rival without the injured Petr Cornelie, a former player among other Real Madrid teams, and with little rotation in their important men.

Donatas Motiejunas was there, and he was even part of the starting quintet that Vassilis Spanoulis had, but his performance in the low post did not materialize. Then Monaco clung to the inspiration of Matthew Strazel in the triples, which took a while to arrive and to make matters worse, his teammates were not very lucid either, apart from Mike James.

However, a 10-0 partial just before the break made it go from 31-45 to 41-45. In the wake of that streak, Monaco completed their comeback on the back of Strazel as soon as the third quarter began, although the response of the culés was the work of Juan Núñez and Jabari Parker to sponsor Brizuela and Metu, true leaders in attack.

Meanwhile, Willy Hernangómez sucked the bench all the time. Having held their own against their opponent when things were looking worst, thanks to the fact that Brizuela continued to see the enormous hoop, Barça scored 19-21 in the accumulated partial of this third period and started the fourth and final period with impetus, in a pavilion demure.

Monaco lacked effervescence, the kind that Mike James usually gives him, who this time woke up late. An unsportsmanlike foul committed by Jaron Blossomgame, with 7:28 remaining, was combined with a long three-pointer by Kevin Punter to sign a 0-10 partial and establish the score at 65-83 on the Salle Gaston-Médecin scoreboard.

To dispel doubts, another triple by Brizuela made it 78-88 with 4:04 left, giving oxygen to a Barça that did not suffer in the outcome despite the offensive efforts of James and, late, of Georgios Papagiannis. Thus, Joan Peñarroya’s pupils were placed with a balance of 11-9, still in the ‘play-in’ zone; On the other hand, Monaco was left with 13-7.

TECHNICAL SHEET.

–RESULT: AS MONACO, 84 – BARÇA, 98 (41-45, at half-time).

–TEAMS:

MONACO AS: James (23), Calathes (8), Loyd (7), Brown (2) and Motiejunas (2) — the starting quintet –; Okobo (4), Blossomgame (9), Papagiannis (10), Strazel (15), Tarpey (-) and Jaiteh (4).

BARÇA: Satoransky (3), Punter (14), Anderson (8), Parker (12) and Fall (6) –starting quintet–; Brizuela (27), Metu (13), Núñez (4), Abrines (11) and Parra (-).

–PARTIALS: 17-25, 24-20, 19-21 and 24-32.

–REFEREES: Belosevic, Koljensic and Kardum. They eliminated Punter at Barça due to personal fouls.

–PAVILLION: Salle Gaston-Médecin, 4,572 spectators.