The reigning champ overturned a 17-point deficit in a rematch from last season’s title decider
Talen Horton-Tucker leads Fenerbahce’s fighting comeback at Monaco
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 15 of 38
Regular Season
AS MonacoASM
8692
Fenerbahce Beko IstanbulFBB
Overview
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From the ridiculous to the sublime, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul’s offense jumped from one extreme to the other during Friday’s comeback victory over AS Monaco, 86-92, handing out more pain to the Roca Team in a rematch of last season’s Championship Game.
The opening few minutes for Saras Jasikevicius’s defending champion team were, to be blunt, awful. Fenerbahce reached the end of the first quarter with just 14 points on the board, having made just 5 of its 20 field-goal attempts, including 1 of 11 from three-point range, and committing 6 turnovers with just 1 assist.
Things didn’t get too much better for the Turkish team over the next quarter and a half, as ongoing inaccuracy allowed Monaco to gradually pull ahead into a seemingly irreversible 67-50 lead with less than three minutes of the third quarter left.
Perhaps that, though, was the wake-up call that Fenerbahce needed, because the remainder of the game was like night into day, as though Jasikevicius had somehow injected his players with a magic potion that switched them immediately from Sleep Mode to Hero Mode.
The comeback was sparked by a three-point strike from Nicolo Melli, before Talen Horton-Tucker netted three baskets in a 10-0 run to bridge the end of the third and the start of the fourth quarter. In precisely three minutes, Monaco’s lead had been cut from 17 points to just 5, and the momentum of the game had totally swung.
Another big run midway through the final period – 13-0 in two and a half minutes – served to send Fenerbahce into the lead, and there was no let-up in the late stages as another burst, this time 9-0, secured an impressive comeback victory thanks to a fourth quarter that yielded 32 points.
Coach Jasikevicius believed the turnaround in fortunes was explained by the consistency of his most tried and trusted performers, with Wade Baldwin, Devon Hall, Bonzie Colson and Melli all playing a full role in the spectacular finale.
“It looked pretty bad over there,” he admitted. “But we got some easy baskets, we hit some three-pointers and obviously in the second half the defense was a totally different ballgame. The numbers don’t lie.
“I’m tired of saying this, but we went [for a] shorter rotation. The guys who’ve been here, who have been through these battles with us, they understand the situation. They are champions, which means they have a great character. I guess in these situations, the most important is to put doubts in Monaco’s head. That’s what we did, and then we played very good in the fourth.”
An exception was Horton-Tucker, the only one of this season’s new arrivals who spent significant time on the floor in the second half. Indeed, it would have been impossible for Jasikevicius to keep the American out of the action as he provided a constant source of inspiration, netting a season-high total of 22 points on 8-of-10 two-point shooting.
And Horton-Tucker attributed his team’s massive improvement to their mental fortitude, saying: “A lot of resilience from the guys, a lot of fight. If we continue to keep doing that, I think we can win a lot. Just staying true to our principles, listening to Coach and listening to the game plan that they put together for us is a big emphasis.”
Horton-Tucker’s point about the team’s character is backed up by a telling statistic: Fenerbahce grabbed no less than 22 offensive rebounds, the second-highest single game figure in club history (behind the total of 30 set last season against Paris Basketball), with nine different players contributing to that number.
The commitment to offensive rebounding was even evident was Fenerbahce was at its offensive worst in the first quarter, which ended with 8 grabs off Monaco's glass. That physicality eventually paid off as Fenerbahce finished with 20 second-chance points – one of the many aspects of the game that displeased Monaco boss Vassilis Spanoulis.
“Even when we were up 17 points, we were not playing good basketball,” Spanoulis said. “We played very individually, not fighting, missing rebounds. It’s unacceptable at this level. At halftime, they had 18 offensive rebounds and we had 18 total rebounds. We were mentally soft. I don’t like soft teams, but today we became so anxious. We deserved to lose the game.”
