Euroleague: Monaco dismisses the Red Star and recruits NBA winger Dwayne Bacon!
AS Monaco defeated Red Star Belgrade (70-62) and announced the signing of American winger Dwayne Bacon, who has 207 NBA games on the clock. Further proof of its enormous ambitions.
Despite a deficient Mike James who missed just about everything he tried (8 points to 3/11), but in particular managed a basket of 10 meters, AS Monaco ended up extricating himself from a Serbian team tenacious by obtaining 9 points his offensive contribution in the last quarter, and inflicting a total of 19 ball losses. A victory which follows three failures in a row in the Euroleague.
The American Alpha Diallo was the man of the meeting on the Monaco side with 19 points, 7 rebounds and 3 interceptions, while the Lithuanian Dontas Motiejunas scored 14 points and 8 rebounds. As expected, Nate Wolters (18 points, 8/9 two-pointers, 5 assists) and Nikola Kalinic (14 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists) led the way on the Serbian side.
Zvezdan Mitrovic (Monaco coach): “I can’t say it was a good game, but we were beaten for 40 minutes. We expected a match like this, not like the match against Barcelona where we played really well, everyone was running, it was a tough, tough game. But we won one more victory in EuroLeague, that’s great. We did our job.
The box score is HERE.
At the same time, the Roca Team was enriched by US winger Dwayne Bacon (1.98m, 26 years old), a former Florida State student, 40th pick in the 2017 draft, considered athletic and a good defender. He played 207 NBA games from 2017 to 2021, in Charlotte and Orlando, with excellent stats last year (10.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists and 50 times started). He failed to convince the New York Knicks staff to trust him.
“I gave everything to get there, but that’s how it is, it’s the basket that wants that, ”he comments on the subject. ASM website. “The NBA is the toughest championship in the world. Now I am starting a new challenge, a new adventure in Europe, and I will give everything for my new Monaco colors. I’m still young, and I need to find this rhythm by going through matches, as can be the case here with the Euroleague and the championship.“
There is no doubt: the Roca Team does indeed intend to offer itself a place in the top 8 of the Euroleague to continue its adventure in the Euroleague beyond this season.
“It’s simply the best competition there is after the NBA, ”Dwayne Bacon said of this. “This is also why I decided to join Monaco. Every week, we face off against the best teams, and great players, many of whom also went through the NBA, or went to the NBA afterwards. We will have to be at our best level at each meeting, if we want to achieve the ambitions defined by the club.“