Monaco ties: there will be a game 5 in Paris!

The 2025 Betclic ELITE playoffs final will have its conclusion: this Tuesday, June 24, Paris Basketball and Monaco will face each other for the fifth time this month. This Sunday at Gaston Medecin arena, the Roca Team tied the series at two wins each by winning game 4 with a score of 80-74. Vassilis Spanoulis’s team managed to limit Paris’s offense to 31 points in the second half. Already contained in the second half on Friday, MVP T.J. Shorts (13 points on 3/11 shooting, 5 rebounds and 5 assists in 26 minutes) got tangled up again in the opposing defense, made of numerous defensive switches. Tiago Splitter’s staff – ejected after a second technical foul – will need to find adjustments against Monaco’s small-ball lineup that causes so many problems for Paris Basketball.

Terry Tarpey launches Monaco, Alpha Diallo essential

Unlike game 3, Monaco took the lead from the start. With Terry Tarpey (7 points and 10 rebounds in less than 20 minutes) starting instead of Petr Cornelie at position 4, the home team took the lead immediately (8-0). The New Yorker had an immediate impact: a first 3-pointer, a rebound-pass then a huge block followed by a 3-pointer from Alpha Diallo allowed Monaco to take off. But the latter’s third foul – more important than ever, with a significant +/- (+16 in 19 minutes) showing his enormous impact (13 points on 3/6 shooting, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and 7 fouls drawn in 19 minutes) – in the middle of the second quarter, on an unsportsmanlike foul, cost Vassilis Spanoulis’s players dearly, as they entered halftime trailing by 3 points (40-43). The Parisians, limited to 23 points scored after 15 minutes of play, had found their rhythm (20 points in 5 minutes).

Too static offense for Paris

But this productive period didn’t last: the third quarter was even the worst of the evening for Paris, with only 13 points total. The Roca Team, playing with increasingly smaller lineups (with Blossomgame as the only big), managed to match Paris’s mobility. Playing as creator, Elie Okobo (19 points on 7/13 shooting, 7 rebounds and 3 assists for a 20 efficiency rating in 34 minutes) was able to find Matthew Strazel (20 points, including 16 in the second half), notably on the third quarter buzzer. In contrast, the Parisians never stopped « freezing » the ball on isolations to attack their matchups, without much success (35% shooting). « We can execute better (our game plan), sometimes we slow down too much, especially when they play small, » admitted forward Daulton Hommes. A view not necessarily shared by his coach. « At the end of the day, we want our best one-on-one players to have the ball. That’s T.J. Shorts, Nadir Hifi and Maodo Lo (back in the series), » commented Tiago Splitter, seemingly quite confident in his strategy. « Maybe we’ll need to put them in situations to help them more, » he nuanced. Neither Shorts (3/11) nor Nadir Hifi (4/14 in 22 minutes) were efficient, precisely because they were targeted on both ends by their opponents. « We need to make them defend so they lack lucidity at the end of the game offensively, especially Nadir (Hifi) and T.J. (Shorts), » explained Strazel, who nevertheless expects a reaction from the two Paris stars on Tuesday. « We know they’re great players, they will respond. They might be a bit more precise, a bit more efficient, » worries the four-time French champion, who hopes to win his first game 5 since 2022. But this time away since this epilogue of a most physical series will be played at the Adidas Arena. A context that doesn’t frighten the Roca Team’s coach, Vassilis Spanoulis, proud of his troops’ mindset who showed « a lot of character. » For his part, Tiago Splitter, although frustrated – particularly regarding officiating – is happy to have home court advantage for this 84th official game of the season. « We finished first in the regular season, we earned the right to finish the season in front of our fans, our families. » But only the title is an option for both teams.

In Monaco,