The guard scored 13 points in 5 minutes bridging the last quarter and the overtime
Mike James came up big in crunch time to lead Monaco past Zalgiris
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It didn’t seem like the best night for Mike James at the beginning of the second quarter of the game that AS Monaco was playing against Zalgiris Kaunas. Right after committing his second foul, he was called for a technical foul that sent him to the bench with his team trailing 21-28. Without James, Monaco fell even lower, amassing a 15-point deficit (27-42).
Thanks to a late reaction before the break, Monaco trailed just 44-48 at halftime, but the feelings were not very good for a team that played to secure a top seed in the playoffs.
“We didn’t play good in the first half, we received a lot of points”, Monaco head coach Vassilis Spanoulis regretted after the game. “And this is not our basketball, we received 48 points, and after halftime half we gave up 32, we had like two different faces.”
That duality was also represented by James, who despite scoring the first bucket of the second half and grabbing his 1,000th rebound of his EuroLeague career soon after, was having a small impact in the game until it went into the final moments.
With Zalgiris still up 70-73 with less than 3 minutes remaining, James decided to take over Monaco’s offense, scoring 8 points in a row capped by a huge three that made it 78-78 entering the last minute. That was crucial for Monaco to force overtime, when Daniel Theis converted a couple of free throws to tie it 80-80 at the end of the fourth quarter.
When the game resumed, James needed just two possessions to show his greatness. He opened with a basket to put his team ahead with just 15 seconds played and later he came up big and drew a foul on Bryant Dunston that turned into 3 free throws that set Monaco on the winning track for good, 85-80.
“We showed some heart today,” James stressed. “I mean, it was a do-or-die game for us. It is at the end of the season, so we are fighting for the playoffs and the home court. So, it was a big win for us. We got another one in two days, so [now, it’s time to] take a deep breath and calm down a little bit tonight and get ready for the game on Thursday.”
James didn’t need to score more, as Elie Okobo showed up to finish the job in the next possessions, and finished with a game-high 22 points, with many of them coming in crunch time to decide a close game. Something his head coach also celebrated.
“It was our time to take a close game,” celebrated Spanoulis. “We missed four or five close games, we could have more wins, and now it’s our time to pick one. It’s great for our psychology, we showed big character down the stretch, we made good plays and we played our best defense in the overtime… Everybody stepped up in overtime.”