For the first time ever in Turkish Airlines EuroLeague action, AS Monaco (21-11) will welcome Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade (18-14) to the principality for their Round 33 clash. This is a meeting with high playoff implications in the regular season's penultimate round, but has larger significance for the visitors than for the hosts.
Monaco, which would love to gift its fans a victory in the team's final regular season home game, has accomplished all its main goals ahead of the playoffs by clinching home-court advantage last week. The team, led by star guard Mike James, would like to keep its momentum going, but also avenge its early-January 20-point loss in Belgrade's Stark Arena.
Partizan still has work to be done when it comes to booking its first playoff ticket since 2010, needing one win or a loss in Round 34 by either Zalgiris Kaunas or Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz to qualify. But Kevin Punter, Mathias Lessort & Co. are coming off a mightily impressive four-game stretch. First visiting two-time champs Anadolu Efes Istanbul before hosting the top three teams in the standings – Olympiacos Piraeus, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid – Partizan has come away with three double-digit wins while averaging 92.8 points over those four games.
By looking at the two clubs, the regions they come from, their respective traditions and history, arenas in which they each play and the difference in appearances of their supporters, one might say Monaco and Partizan could not be any more different. But these two clubs currently have a lot more in common that one would think.
For starters, both Monaco and Partizan have been on an upward trajectory in recent years, and this season has only reinforced that notion.
Monaco, which played in lower-tier French Leagues as recently as 2015, won the 7DAYS EuroCup in 2021, which allowed it to make its EuroLeague debut last season. Now, the club has made the playoffs in both of its EuroLeague campaigns and will be playing with home-court advantage in a best-of-five series later this month.
Partizan, a continental champion in 1992 and a perennial playoff team in the late 2000s, has returned to the EuroLeague after eight seasons away. Under the guidance of the one and only Zeljko Obradovic, the most successful coach ever at the continental level, Partizan has used its high-scoring offense to make progress by leaps and bounds in the last four months of the season and reach the brink of the playoffs.