Like Belgrade, Cologne, Zaragoza and many others, Kaunas is already part of the black legend of Barça, whose inability to show his face in a final four has even been capable of tarnishing the good name of his coach's hometown. Condemned to the penance of playing for third and fourth place after their defeat in the semifinals against a depleted Real Madrid, Jasikevicius's team kept the same tone and boarded the plane back to Barcelona with another defeat against Monaco. It should also be noted that the motivation of those from the Principality in their first break into the top four in Europe was much greater than that of the Catalans, with more desire to return home than to play basketball at the Zalgirio Arena.
Barça achieved their first and only advantage of the entire game thanks to an early three-pointer from Abrines but, from there, the duel became the long-awaited flogging for the Catalans.
A basket on Strazel's buzzer in the first quarter outlined the game's script (24-13). He was running and he wanted Monaco more against an opponent who was still too psychologically affected by the semifinal defeat, who has a lot of work ahead of them to mourn and get ready for the Endesa League playoffs. Although there was a player like Kalinic whose apathy on the parquet was alarming.
The difference in intensity caused the score to widen little by little. An inspired Diallo put the direct without more opposition than the triples of Mirotic, the maximum scored of the game (15) –'A good time!', the player himself will think, very affected by what happened on Friday–. Blossomgame was stretching to 44-26 before the break, but the storm wasn't over yet.
A couple of alley-oops between Jolubaitis and Nnaji were the only sauce that Barça put on until the end because even Monaco's substitutes were able to extend it to 70-49. One last Barça reaction minimized the drama. Everyone wanted to leave Kaunas, even Jasikevicius.
78 - Monaco (24-20-16-18): James (3), Loyd (9), Diallo (10), Brown (2), Motiejunas (2) - starting five - Outtara (2), Hall (9), Blossomgame (9), Moneke (4), Okobo (10), Strazel (14) and Makoundou (4).
66 - Barça (13 15 17 21): Satoransky (7), Laprovittola (5), Abrines (9), Mirotic (15), Sanli (2) -cinco inicial-, Jokubaitis (-), Vesely (6), Tobey (2), Kuric (7), Kalinic (4), Nnaji (7) and Sergi Martínez (2).
Referees: Rizhyk (UCR), Panther (GER) and Hordov (CRO). No deleted.
Incidents: Some 15,000 spectators attended the match played at the Zalgirio Arena in Kaunas, in the consolation final of the Euroleague.
