Three Game 5s will take place next week!
Game Center: Monaco beats Fener 62-65 to force Game 5
Monaco has taken its playoff series to Game 5! In a do-or-die situation, Monaco edged Fenerbahce 62-65 to tie the best-of-five series at 2-2 and send the series back to the principality for Game 5 -- the third in this season's playoffs! Fenerbahce led 33-30 at halftime, then Jordan Loyd and Yakuba Ouattara allowed Monaco to get a 47-48 lead after 30 minutes. Down the stretch, Donta Hall dunked twice and had a good-as-gold block, Mike James buried a critical three-pointer, and Scottie Wilbekin missed a potential go-ahead shot down the stretch, which allowed Hall to seal the deal with a dunk. Elie Okobo led the winners with 13 points. It will all come down to Game 5 in Monaco.
Olympiacos trailed Barcelona 21-23 after one quarter but took a 53-47 lead into the halftime break and had a 72-47 edge after three quarters. A slow start to the last quarter saw the two teams go scoreless for 2 minutes before Shaq McKissic nailed a triple, 75-47. Nikola Kalinic and Filip Petrusev traded baskets before a McKissic layup gave Olympiacos an 81-50 lead. Nigel Williams-Goss netted a triple, but Barcelona responded with two James Nnaji buckets from inside to trim the deficit to 84-54. Yet, Olympiacos wouldn’t take the foot off the gas, with McKissic completing a three-point play and Canaan netting a triple to finish it off, 90-54. McKissic led all scorers with 21 points, while Parker paced Barcelona with 10 points.
Maccabi held a 29-26 lead after the first quarter and 50-49 at halftime, but Panathinaikos had a strong close to the third quarter and took a 69-74 edge into the final quarter. Down the stretch, Kendrick Nunn and Kostas Sloukas saw the Greens get over the line as they came away with an 88-95 win to force a Game 5 back at OAKA next week. Nunn paced Panathinaikos with a game-high 27 points, Sloukas had 20 points, Mathias Lessort netted 17, and Dinos Mitoglou scored 13. Lorenzo Brown had 17 points for Maccabi, with Tamir Blatt and Bonzie Colson adding 14 apiece, Josh Nebo netting 12 and John DiBartomeo scoring 10.