Obradovic awaits 'character game' after Monaco unable to deal with small-ball
AS Monaco head coach Sasa Obradovic said that he expects his team to step up and bounce back after losing Game 1 of their best-of-five playoff series at home to Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul.
“We know where we need to go. The next game is a character game. I believe we will act solid,” said Obradovic after his team’s 91-95 overtime loss at Salle Gaston Medecin.
The fact that Fenerbahce gave his team a serious fight - coming back from 14 points down - was not a surprise at all for the Monaco play-caller.
“We expected a game like this. I expect a full series with more results like this,” he said.
What Obradovic did not expect was Fenerbahce head coach Saras Jasikevicius going to a small-ball lineup.
“We were expecting a typical game and it was completely an atypical game. There was the small-ball lineup the whole time. We got punished by some individual mistakes on one-on-one, letting shooters get open,” he said.
With Johnathan Motley in Monaco but unable to play with an injury, Jasikevicius started the game with Sertac Sanli at center. But the big man played only 6:53 minutes as he drew four fouls. And the coach only used Greek center Georgios Papagiannis for 8:10 minutes.
Instead, he used 2.05-meter forward Nathan Sestina as a small-ball center for 31 minutes.
“In some moments we adjusted pretty good [to the small-ball lineup] and sometimes we lost the control. We have to be smarter - not shoot the ball from the outside if we are in the bonus but go inside and draw some fouls,” Obradovic said. “We didn’t find the right matchups to attack.”
A major problem was Monaco shooting just 29.6% on three-pointers - hitting 8-of-27. Elie Okobo and Mike James combined for 35 points but they also combined to make just 3-of-14 from the outside.
In addition, Monaco came into the playoffs almost with a sense of invincibility having won 12 of its last 13 games. Now the team has been grounded and can show its character.