Fener leaned on defense to set up Game 3 win
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul has turned the Ulker Sports and Event Hall into a real fortress in recent weeks, delivering a series of spectacular offensive performances to thrill its yellow legion of fans and send opponents home without reward.
And Wednesday was no different, as the Turkish team recorded an 89-78 victory over AS Monaco to retain homecourt advantage and take a 2-1 series lead.
It was the tenth consecutive home game with Fener scoring at least 80 points, with Saras Jasikevicius’s team passing the 100-point barrier on four of those occasions to show just how comfortable it feels in Istanbul.
After the game, though, Fenerbahce’s main protagonists preferred to focus their praise on the team’s efforts at the other end of the floor.
After providing 13 points and 5 assists for a team-high PIR of 18, backcourt star Nick Calathes commented: “Defense was crucial for us today. We held a very good offensive team. We made some stops, we made some big shots at the end, but defense was key.”
Monaco’s failure to reach 80 points was in large part because of Fener’s excellent defense against the visiting team’s dangerous guards, with Mike James (11 points), Jordan Loyd (11) and Elie Okobo (2) all held well below their season averages. Monaco especially struggled from long-range, making just 4 of its 21 attempts from beyond the arc, and couldn’t score any more than 21 points in any of the four quarters.
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Coach Jasikevicius pronounced himself very happy with those defensive efforts, also explaining why that was so important as he said: ”Our defense was much better.
“It's so difficult to score against them. They’re such a good defensive team, we have to try to slow them down. There's still a lot of stuff we can do better, but these are very good defensive numbers against such a talented team. We need one more like this.”
With one more like this, Fener will be returning to the Final Four for the first time since 2019.