Euroleague Playoff (1-8): One Last Dance in Piraeus

My prediction: Piraeus 3-1 · Piraeus wins Series 3-0

Latest Game:

Game 3 - Piraeus Clinches — Monaco Never Had an Answer

AS Monaco 82 – Olympiacos Piraeus 105

Three games. Three Olympiacos wins. A combined margin of 74 points.

AS Monaco played Game 3 at the Salle Gaston Médecin — their actual home arena, 4,934 fans, the one venue where they had any realistic chance of changing the terms of this series. They lost by 23. The PIR gap was 139 to 80 — a 59-point differential that represents not just a better team winning, but a systematically superior basketball operation eliminating a structurally limited one.

Olympiacos are in the Final Four. Monaco are eliminated. The result was inevitable from Game 1. Game 3 merely confirmed it with finality.

The Second Quarter Decided a Game Monaco Were Already Losing

Monaco trailed 26-17 after the first quarter — competitive enough in margin if not in execution. For one quarter they had matched Olympiacos possession-for-possession without actually threatening the scoreboard.

Then the second quarter: Olympiacos outscored Monaco 35-23. By halftime the gap was 61-40. A 21-point halftime deficit in a best-of-5 elimination game, at home, is not a deficit. It is a sentence.

Monaco never recovered because Monaco never had the roster to recover. Evan Fournier scored 22 points on 60% from three with 5 assists and a 23 PIR in 25 minutes. Alec Peters added 18 points on 80% two-point shooting with a 21 PIR and +17 in under 17 minutes. Thomas Walkup contributed 14 points, 5 assists and a +19 from the point guard position. Nine Olympiacos players finished with a positive plus/minus.

This is Bartzokas's system at its peak: ten contributors, no weak links, no quarter where a single defensive adjustment neutralizes the team's offensive output. Monaco had no answer for it in Game 1. They had no answer in Game 2. They had no answer here.

Mike James: The Right Player on the Wrong Team

Mike James played 36 minutes — the most of any Monaco player — scored 16 points on 33.3% shooting and finished -16. His 3 turnovers and 4 assists in a game Monaco lost by 23 is the statistical summary of a player trying to carry a structure that cannot be carried.

Across three games, James has been Monaco's most complete performer by PIR in two of the three contests. His team lost all three by a combined 74 points. That is not a James problem. That is a roster construction problem that Manuchar Markoishvili could not solve and that James could not compensate for alone.

Matthew Strazel scored 21 points and had Monaco's highest PIR at 25 — a career-defining performance in a game that had already been decided. Jaron Blossomgame contributed 19 points on 83.3% two-point shooting. Both deserved better than the result they were part of.

Monaco shot 27.6% from three — 8-of-29 — across three playoff games combined. That number encapsulates the series. A perimeter-dependent offense that cannot convert at league-average rates against elite playoff defense is not a Final Four team. Monaco were never a Final Four team. The bracket confirmed what the regular season suggested.

What This Means for the Final Four

Olympiacos advance to Athens as the competition's most complete team — depth at every position, a coaching staff that makes adjustments faster than opponents can exploit gaps, and a home advantage that compounds everything. The Peace and Friendship Stadium will host the semifinal. The crowd will be what it always is: a genuine competitive factor.

Three opponents across this series tried to find an answer for Bartzokas's rotations. None found one. Fournier, Peters, Walkup, Vezenkov — the names change every game, but the PIR gap doesn't. Against Olympiacos in Athens, the Final Four semifinal opponent will face the same problem Monaco faced in Games 1, 2, and 3.

No individual solution exists for a team problem.

Monaco go home. Olympiacos go to Athens.

The destination was never in doubt.

Series History:

Preview

Almost twelve months ago, these two teams met in the EuroLeague Final Four semifinals in Abu Dhabi. Monaco won 78-68. Mike James had a 29 PIR. Olympiacos went home early. It was one of the defining upsets of last season's postseason — the moment that confirmed Monaco as not just a competitor but a genuine Final Four contender.

Now they meet again. Same teams. Fundamentally different circumstances.

Last year's matchup was between two clubs operating near their respective ceilings — Monaco riding an extraordinary run of form, Olympiacos the number one seed but vulnerable in single elimination. This year's quarterfinal is something else entirely. Olympiacos finished the regular season as the best team in European basketball for the second consecutive year, at 26-12, with the highest PIR in the competition. Monaco arrives as the eighth seed, having survived two Play-In elimination games in four days, having changed coaches midseason, and having played out a year defined more by off-court turbulence than on-court excellence.

The role reversal is complete. Piraeus is the clear favorite. The question is whether Monaco has enough left — in energy, in cohesion, in belief — to make this series genuinely uncomfortable.

Olympiacos — The Most Complete Team in Europe

Georgios Bartzokas has built something in Piraeus that is rare in European basketball: a team with no obvious weak link, no exploitable rotation hole, and the organizational depth to sustain excellence across a full 38-game regular season and into a best-of-five postseason format.

Sasha Vezenkov is the engine. 19.4 points per game, 23.1 PIR — the league's most productive individual performer across the full season. His combination of perimeter shooting, off-ball movement, and the intelligence to operate within Bartzokas's system without requiring isolation possessions makes him almost impossible to guard cleanly. You can chase him off the three-point line — he drives. You can sag — he shoots. You can double — he passes to the cutter.

Thomas Walkup at the point guard position provides the organizational intelligence to manage tempo and run Bartzokas's half-court sets with precision. Nikola Milutinov anchors the interior — 7.1 rebounds, 3.1 offensive boards per game, one of the most reliable pick-and-roll finishers in the competition. Evan Fournier — as last season's Final Four proved — is capable of a 31-point night when the game demands it. Tyler Dorsey, Frank Ntilikina, Kostas Papanikolaou — the rotation goes deep without a meaningful drop in quality.

The statistical profile tells the full story: first in PIR (109.6), first in assists (21.6 per game), second in points scored (90.3), second in defensive rebounds. Olympiacos have won nine consecutive home games at the Peace and Friendship Stadium this season. That building — loud, hostile, historically significant for Greek basketball — becomes their sixth player in Games 1 and 2.

Monaco — The Last Dance

This is, in all likelihood, the final chapter for this version of AS Monaco Basketball.

The season has been defined by what happened off the court as much as what happened on it. The departure of Vassilis Spanoulis — whose arrival was celebrated as a generational appointment — mid-season created a rupture in team chemistry, trust, and organizational stability that the statistics only partially capture. The financial obligations that were not honored. The confidence that eroded. The players who kept showing up despite everything.

Manuchar Markoishvili took over and did something more difficult than most observers acknowledged: he stabilized a team in freefall, rebuilt enough collective belief to win seven of ten games down the stretch, and delivered a Play-In performance against Barcelona that was the most defensively disciplined Monaco game of the entire season.

Mike James remains the series' most volatile individual factor. When James is engaged — genuinely, competitively, with the full range of his offensive creativity operating — he is capable of performances that no single defender can neutralize. His 29 PIR in last year's Final Four semifinal against this same Olympiacos team is the data point Monaco will hold onto entering Game 1. His 19.1 PIR average for the season is the second highest on his team. He is 34 years old. He knows this may be the last time he plays playoff basketball in a Monaco uniform. That knowledge, for a player of James's competitive character, cuts both ways — it can produce transcendence or it can produce pressure.

Daniel Theis is Monaco's most underrated asset in this matchup. The German center brings NBA-caliber physicality and defensive IQ to a frontcourt battle against Milutinov — a matchup that will define whether Monaco can make this series competitive. Theis's ability to switch defensively, protect the rim, and operate as a credible scoring threat in the mid-range gives Monaco options that most eighth seeds do not have.

The inconsistency problem is the series' central uncertainty for Monaco. Nemanja Nedovic and Matthew Strazel are both capable of double-digit scoring performances and equally capable of disappearing for stretches. Jaron Blossomgame was magnificent against Barcelona — his 10 rebounds and 23 PIR in the Play-In final were the foundation of Monaco's defensive performance. Whether he replicates that consistency against a more complete Olympiacos roster is the question.

Juhann Begarin brings athleticism and perimeter shooting potential. Alpha Diallo provides defensive versatility. Kevarrius Hayes offers rim protection backup. The depth exists. Whether it coheres over five games against the best team in Europe is a different question.

The Tactical Battle

The series will be decided by two variables.

First: points volume. If this becomes an open, high-scoring series — both teams shooting efficiently, the pace up, the defensive intensity unable to sustain the kind of 70-point performance Monaco delivered against Barcelona — Olympiacos wins easily. Their offensive depth is simply too great. When Vezenkov, Fournier, Walkup, and Dorsey are all finding shots, Monaco has no defensive answer that holds across 40 minutes.

Second: Monaco's ability to slow it down. The Play-In performance showed what Monaco's defense looks like when fully engaged: disciplined closeouts, contested threes, forcing difficult shots from Barcelona's best scorers. If Markoishvili can replicate that defensive scheme against a more complex Olympiacos offense — if Theis can make Milutinov uncomfortable, if James can pressure Walkup into turnovers, if Blossomgame can contain Vezenkov's off-ball movement — Monaco makes at least one game genuinely competitive.

The Play-In, however, was Monaco at home. The Salle Gaston Médecin crowd generating energy that transferred to the court. Games 1 and 2 are in Piraeus. The Peace and Friendship Stadium with a crowd that has been waiting two years to eliminate the team that knocked them out in Abu Dhabi.

The History & What It Means

These two sides have met in three consecutive postseasons. Monaco won last season's semifinal 78-68. Olympiacos rallied from a historic 27-2 run in the third quarter to advance in the 2022-23 Final Four. The two sides first met in the playoffs during Monaco's debut season, with Olympiacos edging through with a Game 5 win in Piraeus.

Monaco have beaten Olympiacos twice in the regular season this year — two of only a handful of teams to accomplish that. Only Monaco and Valencia have beaten the league leader twice this term. Regular season records against playoff opponents mean less than they appear to. But they do confirm that Monaco's game plan works against Olympiacos when fully executed.

The series history creates a genuine psychological complexity. Olympiacos knows what it feels like to lose to this team in the postseason. Monaco knows they can win in Piraeus. Both facts matter.

The Prediction

Olympiacos 3-1.

Monaco win one game. Almost certainly Game 2 or 3 — either stealing one on the road through a James masterpiece, or taking one at home in front of a Salle Gaston Médecin crowd that will be electric. But Olympiacos's depth, home court, coaching quality, and the physical toll of Monaco's Play-In run is too much to overcome across five games.

Bartzokas has prepared for this rivalry across three postseasons. He knows James. He knows Theis. He knows where Monaco is vulnerable and where they are dangerous. His adjustments after any Monaco win will be surgical and immediate.

This is a series worth watching for the individual moments it will produce — James against Vezenkov, Theis against Milutinov, Markoishvili against Bartzokas on the sideline. Monaco will make it interesting. They always do.

But this is Olympiacos's year. And Piraeus is their house.

The Last Dance begins Tuesday. Game 1, 20:00 CET, Peace and Friendship Stadium, Piraeus.

Game 1 - The No. 1 Seed Delivers a Statement

Olympiacos Piraeus 91 – AS Monaco 70

12,750 fans at the Peace and Friendship Stadium saw exactly what the regular season promised: Olympiacos is a different animal at home. Monaco had no answer for it.

The #1 seed didn't need a spectacular performance. They needed a complete one. Nikola Milutinov posted 25 PIR with 13 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists in 22 minutes. Sasha Vezenkov scored 20 on 62.5% from two and 50% from three. Seven different Olympiacos players finished in positive plus/minus territory. In a best-of-5 quarterfinal, a 21-point home win in Game 1 doesn't just put Monaco in a hole — it defines the psychological terms of the entire series. The historical record supports the conclusion: Olympiacos leads this all-time series 1-4, meaning Monaco knows how to win these games. What they don't know yet is how to win this one.

The Quarter That Ended Monaco's Game Plan

The scoreboard was tied through the first quarter — 19-20, Monaco marginally ahead. For approximately ten minutes, Manuchar Markoishvili's system worked. Mike James was distributing, Amath Diallo was active on the glass, and Monaco looked competitive enough to make this a game.

Then the second quarter happened.

Olympiacos outscored Monaco 26-16 in Q2. That 10-point swing didn't come from a single run or one hero performance — it came from Georgios Bartzokas's rotations producing quality at every position. Evan Fournier, in 23 minutes, contributed 13 points and 7 rebounds with a 15 PIR. Cory Joseph added 13 points on 100% two-point shooting. The team PIR finished at 114 to Monaco's 67 — a 47-point gap that reflects not just quality at the top, but depth the entire way down the roster.

Monaco had 13 offensive rebounds. They went to the line 14 times and shot 85.7%. They were not passive. They just weren't good enough in the half-court, where the game is decided in Europe.

Mike James Is Not the Problem. He Is Monaco's Only Solution.

Mike James finished with 30 PIR — the highest individual performance index of any player in this game. He scored 19 points, had 7 assists, and was a -15. That last number is the story.

Monaco's best player had his best game and his team lost by 21. In a best-of-5, that is the structure of an impossible equation. For Monaco to win this series, James almost certainly needs to deliver 30+ points per game consistently — not just 19 on efficient shooting while his teammates produce nothing. Daniel Theis scored 6 points in 16 minutes. Nenad Nedovic scored zero. Three Monaco starters finished with single-digit PIR.

This is the arithmetic problem Markoishvili cannot solve through tactics alone: if James is Monaco's only reliable source of shot creation and shot-making at this level, Olympiacos's depth will wear them down. Bartzokas can rotate 8 or 9 players who contribute. Monaco cannot match that.

A Series That May Already Be Decided

TEP's pre-series prediction was Olympiacos — and nothing in Game 1 changes that direction, only the confidence level. The #1 seed won at home, controlled the game from the second quarter onward, and got contributions from every starter. The Peace and Friendship Stadium was loud. It will be louder in Game 2.

For Monaco to survive and extend this series, the answer is simple and almost unreachable: someone other than Mike James has to become a genuine offensive threat. Theis was a 22-point scorer in the NBA. Nedovic has playoff experience across European competitions. Against Olympiacos in Athens, neither showed up.

This series goes to Athens regardless — the Final Four is already there. But whether Monaco arrives as a semifinalist or a eliminated team will depend on whether Game 2 produces a version of them that Game 1 never did.

Right now, there is no evidence that version exists.

Game 2 - Olympiacos Removes All Doubt

Olympiacos Piraeus 94 – AS Monaco 64

The second quarter ended 59-31. Olympiacos had outscored Monaco 31-8 in ten minutes of basketball. The game was over before halftime. The series was over before it began.

Two games. Two Olympiacos wins. A combined margin of 51 points. Monaco's top player, Mike James, has scored 26 points total across both games — 7 in Game 2 — while posting a -25 plus/minus on the night. The historical series record now reads 1-5 in Olympiacos's favor. There is no Game 3 that changes the arithmetic of what has happened here.

This was not a close series decided by small margins. This was a quality gap, exposed completely.

The Second Quarter That Ended Everything

Monaco came into Game 2 having lost by 21. They needed a response. For one quarter, they manufactured one — trailing 28-23 after the first, competitive enough to suggest that Game 1's margin might have been misleading.

Then Georgios Bartzokas's rotations hit their stride.

Olympiacos outscored Monaco 31-8 in the second quarter. Not through a single run or one player catching fire — through sustained, rotating pressure that Monaco had no structural answer for. Eight Monaco points in ten minutes means their offense essentially stopped functioning. By halftime, the Peace and Friendship Stadium crowd of 12,750 knew they were watching a coronation, not a contest.

The PIR gap tells the complete story: Olympiacos 113, Monaco 62. A 51-point differential. Across two games, the cumulative PIR gap is 98 points. That is not a series. That is a team being systematically dismantled.

Vezenkov and Fournier: Depth as a Weapon

Sasha Vezenkov scored 21 points in 20 minutes on 100% two-point shooting and 62.5% from three. His PIR of 28 was the game's highest. He did it in 20 minutes — a rotation player's allocation of time, not a star's.

Evan Fournier added 16 points and 7 assists with a 24 PIR and a +34 plus/minus in just over 20 minutes. Alec Peters finished +34 in 20 minutes. Shaquielle McKissic posted a +26. Devon Hall a +23. Seven Olympiacos players finished with a positive plus/minus of +9 or higher.

This is the structural reality that Monaco could not solve across two games: Olympiacos don't have a star who carries them. They have a system where nine or ten players contribute meaningfully on any given night, where Bartzokas can rotate freely because the quality drop from starter to bench is minimal. Against a Monaco team that needs James to produce 30+ points to be competitive, that depth is impossible to overcome.

Monaco's offensive ceiling in this series was always constrained by how many players could genuinely threaten Olympiacos's defense. The answer, across both games, was: not enough. James scored 7 points in Game 2. Nedovic finished -31. Blossomgame -24. Monaco shot 20% from three on the night — 6-of-30 across two games from distance.

The Three-Point Problem Monaco Never Solved

Game 1: Monaco 14.3% from three. Game 2: Monaco 20%. Two games, 6-of-30 combined from distance — 20% — against an Olympiacos defense that consistently generated contested perimeter shots and controlled the paint simultaneously.

The shot chart confirms what the box score suggests: Monaco's makes in Game 2 are almost entirely clustered at the rim. Their three-point attempts scatter across the arc with very few conversions. Olympiacos's chart shows a team that attacks from multiple zones efficiently — mid-range pull-ups, corner threes, paint finishes — with no obvious weakness to exploit defensively.

Markoishvili had no tactical solution to offer. His best perimeter players — James, Nedovic, Okobo — could not create quality looks against Olympiacos's defensive structure. His interior options — Theis played 2 minutes before presumably picking up early foul trouble — were outmatched. The bench produced nothing.

What Comes Next for Monaco — and for Olympiacos

Monaco face elimination with the series returning to the Salle Gaston Médecin. They have won this series once in the last five meetings when going down 0-2. Mathematically still alive. Realistically, finished.

For Olympiacos, the more interesting question is already forming: who do they meet at the Final Four in Athens? The #1 seed will host the semifinal at the OAKA — the same Peace and Friendship Stadium where Monaco were eliminated over two games without winning a single quarter after the first. That crowd, that arena, and a team playing with this level of systemic cohesion makes Olympiacos the team everyone in Athens wants to avoid.

Game 3 is in Monaco. Olympiacos will send their rotation players. The outcome is already decided.

Mike James needs 30 points per game to give Monaco a chance. In two home games, he combined for 26.

Game 3 - Piraeus Clinches — Monaco Never Had an Answer

AS Monaco 82 – Olympiacos Piraeus 105

Three games. Three Olympiacos wins. A combined margin of 74 points.

AS Monaco played Game 3 at the Salle Gaston Médecin — their actual home arena, 4,934 fans, the one venue where they had any realistic chance of changing the terms of this series. They lost by 23. The PIR gap was 139 to 80 — a 59-point differential that represents not just a better team winning, but a systematically superior basketball operation eliminating a structurally limited one.

Olympiacos are in the Final Four. Monaco are eliminated. The result was inevitable from Game 1. Game 3 merely confirmed it with finality.

The Second Quarter Decided a Game Monaco Were Already Losing

Monaco trailed 26-17 after the first quarter — competitive enough in margin if not in execution. For one quarter they had matched Olympiacos possession-for-possession without actually threatening the scoreboard.

Then the second quarter: Olympiacos outscored Monaco 35-23. By halftime the gap was 61-40. A 21-point halftime deficit in a best-of-5 elimination game, at home, is not a deficit. It is a sentence.

Monaco never recovered because Monaco never had the roster to recover. Evan Fournier scored 22 points on 60% from three with 5 assists and a 23 PIR in 25 minutes. Alec Peters added 18 points on 80% two-point shooting with a 21 PIR and +17 in under 17 minutes. Thomas Walkup contributed 14 points, 5 assists and a +19 from the point guard position. Nine Olympiacos players finished with a positive plus/minus.

This is Bartzokas's system at its peak: ten contributors, no weak links, no quarter where a single defensive adjustment neutralizes the team's offensive output. Monaco had no answer for it in Game 1. They had no answer in Game 2. They had no answer here.

Mike James: The Right Player on the Wrong Team

Mike James played 36 minutes — the most of any Monaco player — scored 16 points on 33.3% shooting and finished -16. His 3 turnovers and 4 assists in a game Monaco lost by 23 is the statistical summary of a player trying to carry a structure that cannot be carried.

Across three games, James has been Monaco's most complete performer by PIR in two of the three contests. His team lost all three by a combined 74 points. That is not a James problem. That is a roster construction problem that Manuchar Markoishvili could not solve and that James could not compensate for alone.

Matthew Strazel scored 21 points and had Monaco's highest PIR at 25 — a career-defining performance in a game that had already been decided. Jaron Blossomgame contributed 19 points on 83.3% two-point shooting. Both deserved better than the result they were part of.

Monaco shot 27.6% from three — 8-of-29 — across three playoff games combined. That number encapsulates the series. A perimeter-dependent offense that cannot convert at league-average rates against elite playoff defense is not a Final Four team. Monaco were never a Final Four team. The bracket confirmed what the regular season suggested.

What This Means for the Final Four

Olympiacos advance to Athens as the competition's most complete team — depth at every position, a coaching staff that makes adjustments faster than opponents can exploit gaps, and a home advantage that compounds everything. The Peace and Friendship Stadium will host the semifinal. The crowd will be what it always is: a genuine competitive factor.

Three opponents across this series tried to find an answer for Bartzokas's rotations. None found one. Fournier, Peters, Walkup, Vezenkov — the names change every game, but the PIR gap doesn't. Against Olympiacos in Athens, the Final Four semifinal opponent will face the same problem Monaco faced in Games 1, 2, and 3.

No individual solution exists for a team problem.

Monaco go home. Olympiacos go to Athens.

The destination was never in doubt.