AS Monaco's win over Panathinaikos Athens kept everyone glued to their TVs because of the Greens' big comeback attempt, yet the performances of Mike James and Derrick Williams for their respective teams also added an interesting subplot in the game.
James scored 11 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter, while Williams set a career high of 28 points in Monaco’s thrilling 80-83 victory in Greece.
The expression of a player carrying a team gets thrown around a lot, but what Williams did for his new team was really unheard of at almost any level of pro basketball. With Panathinaikos trying to come back from an 18-point deficit, the 31-year-old forward scored the final eight points of the first half, including an exciting buzzer-beating dunk at the end of the second quarter. Williams then drained four three-pointers – the last one being a four-point play – as he scored Panathinaikos’s first 16 points of the second half.
That meant that Williams had scored 24 consecutive points for the Greens. In fact, including the two points he had scored early in the first quarter, Williams had tallied 26 points when he tied the game at 50-50, having personally outscored his own team at that point 26-24.
Williams went to the bench for a breather and would later return in the third quarter to hit a jumper to put Panathinaikos ahead, which gave him a new career high of 28 points. He would end up going scoreless in the fourth quarter, as he finished with 28 points and 6 rebounds for a PIR of 28.
James, meanwhile, refused to let his team lose, especially after Monaco had failed to hold a 19-point lead in Round 3 during its 78-70 loss to Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv.
The 32-year-old recorded 10 points in a row to help Monaco go from 61-66 ahead to a 70-76 gap with 2 minutes to play. James added a free throw with 2.1 seconds for the final score, as he also picked up 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 12 fouls drawn for a PIR of 29 in a great showdown of teams and great players.
