Game 1 in the Euroleague playoffs is a wildly unbalanced beast in terms of stakes, or at least the imagined stakes, and few games made the beauty of the madness of such a scenario quite as clear
Elie Okobo went 0 of 3 from deep in the first half of Game 1. It felt like 0 of infinity such was the inevitability whenever he or any of his Monaco team mates tried a shot from deep in the first 20 minutes as they sought to defend home court.
Home court. It’s supposed to be an advantage, a reward, yet the best-of-5 format of the Euroleague playoffs adds a touch of risk in Game 1 that really can’t exist in any other format. Let’s think about the fundamentals for a moment
There’s more risk early
If you drop one, and only one, of your first two games at home in the NBA playoffs, you are guaranteed something that isn’t present in the Euroleague playoffs. You are guaranteed at least one more game at home. Not in Euroleague and that’s good. This isn’t the NBA, this is its own beast and it ramps up the madness.
The 2-2-1 format means that the moment you lose serve, so to speak, you absolutely must break back to get a chance to bring it home. You will not have the chance to make it up in the sixth game of the series or anything like that. That turnaround must happen fast. It’s part of what made the series between Real Madrid and Panathinaikos in 2018 so fantastic.
Here and now, in Monaco, a home game already felt like a road one with over 600 loud and visible Maccabi fans in the house and the pressure on the hosts was obvious. This was must-not-lose basketball whereas Maccabi could just work on what they needed to do to win.
That’s why Monaco felt the nerves ramp up more and more as each error happened and their sheer terror at a three not going in guaranteed they went 0 of 10 in the first half and 0 of 11 before it was snapped. Even Sasa Obradovic was flooding the floor with the sweat pouring off his head. This was playoff basketball in the most nervous of environments.
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Donatas Motiejunas was the only Monaco player who could provide anything of note for the hosts in Game 1.
The blunt berserker energy of Donatas Motiejunas was essentially the entire Monaco offence in the first half. His 9 points were a big contribution, the 6 fouls he drew were almost as valuable.
Monaco really lacked any kind of true threat outside of this when looking to score. This is a side that hardly lacks artists, Mike James, Jordan Loyd, and John Brown surely should have been delivering something yet the collective shooting troubles of the team seemed to turn into a slump across the roster
Motiejunas alone was rousing them with his on court action reminding them of the fight needed when it gets to the games that matter. The strain on his face even in the early moments were like a man raging against the dying of the light late one.
Wade Baldwin IV is the heel
And he’s totally fine with that. It began with a wait, what a wait, so long and he nearly made a mess of it. The 7 or 8 seconds he waited to get the final shot of the first quarter up felt like the type of nonsense you do in MyCareer on 2K yet reality should have bitten as he lost his handle but, nope, this is the guy you hate to have against you but love to have on your team. He recovered, made the three, and kept going.
Then came the flop. Just to be clear, Alpha Diallo definitely shoved Baldwin and it was a clear unsportsmanlike but Baldwin wasn’t taking a chance. He flopped like a rookie in wrestling school that doesn’t know the art of the sell. The referees effectively called him on it throughout the replay viewing and, what the fans in the arena couldn’t have known, were seemingly certain to not upgrade to unsportsmanlike until the very last moment. Then, in real time, they saw how obvious the shove was that even a flop as silly as Baldwin’s couldn’t distract from it.
He was doing the gritty work and creating too but Baldwin was more than happy to be the bad guy that his own fans love and that only added to the drama before us.
The Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were in early and loud to make their players feel a home away from home.
The gaps feel wider
There was a spell in the second quarter where Maccabi led 30-23 and it felt enormous, yet Monaco of course cut it to just 3 at the half. Again in the third, it hit a dozen or so of a gap and it felt like 25. This is what Game 1 does where every failing feels bigger rather than the success that is over it.
These are leads that come and go in basketball like bacon does my plate on a Saturday morning. Yet Game 1? Even long before the business end of proceedings, leads felt bigger than usual. A team shooting like Monaco was from deep exacerbated it but still it’s this weird stomach churning madness that only comes.
You can’t win the Tour de France in the first week but you can lose it, such as Game 1 of a Euroleague playoff series feels.
Dead cat bounce
Mike James made a three, only Monaco’s second of the night, with 7 minutes left to cut it to 11. Still manageable under pretty much every basketball circumstance imaginable yet it really didn’t feel like it would start any kind of rousing comeback. The late game James takeover wasn’t a threat to be feared right then.
Then came another bucket by James and oh oh oh. Nope, Maccabi with the alley-oop finish by Josh Nebo to remind everyone who was in charge and James immediately missed from deep on the next possession. There wasn’t a takeover happening.
This was a well-earned win by a visiting team that always looked more comfortable. Whatever doubts Maccabi’s players may have had didn’t bother them while the hosts were consumed by theirs until they drowned. Onwards to Thursday when they go again.
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