Maccabi Tel Aviv opens up the Euroleague postseason on Tuesday as they visit Monaco for the first two games of their best of five quarterfinal series. The tilt will surely provide plenty of chills and thrills for basketball fans as one of the continent’s legendary teams in Maccabi will tip-off against one of Europe’s up and coming powers in Monaco.

In order to get an in-depth look into Monaco and what the yellow-and-blue faithful can except from their rivals, The Sports Rabbi spoke to a pair of France’s top hoops scribes in Yann Ohnona from the sports daily L’Equipe and Francois Paturle of the Nice Matin newspaper.

Monaco had a superb season having finished in 4th place this season but according to Ohnona this was not a surprise, “Given Monaco’s budget and what they did last season by going to the playoffs and being so close to advancing to the Final Four, this was not much of a surprise. So this season finishing in 4th place was what we kind of expected. They actually made their team even better and have more weapons, so anything less than a Final Four this season would be a disappointment even if it’s not guaranteed for anyone at this level of competition.”

Paturle agreed, “This was the goal of the lockerroom and goal of the team to go in Final Four from the beginning. I wouldn’t said that this was a surprise as they made it to the playoffs last season, but nonetheless it’s big achievement. French basketball has been absent from the Final Four since 1997 when ASVEL was there and if Monaco makes it, this would be historical.”

 
The team’s head coach Sasa Obradovic has been plying his trade behind the bench since 2005 after having played the game for close to two decades. Although he hasn’t had many years coaching in the Euroleague, the Serbian brings plenty to the table and deserves much credit for the past two campaigns explained Ohnona, “Sasa Obradovic has to get a lot of credit, but you also have Mike James. However, there was an issue and suspension for James so his job is not easy. He has to balance the team between the talent of James and the rest of the team which has some pretty good players in like Elie Okobo, Alpha Diallo, Jordan Loyd and Donatas Motiejunas. All of them could contend for a starting five spot.”

“You need to balance what James does which is very special at moments but sometimes it may not be good for the team if he does too much. Obradovic’s job is always trying to give the freedom to James and satisfying the rest of the team so that they can play as a team and everybody is happy. The credit goes to him because if he doesn’t have that he doesn’t make it to the playoffs. So in a way he is very successful.”

Another important person who has made a significant impact on Monaco basket as a whole has been their general manager Oleksiy Yefimov. Francois feels that Yefimov has been extremely critical to both the club’s on court and off court success in growing the club’s brand.

“Oleksiy Yefimov has been the general manager since the team was in the lower divisions in Pro B, back in 2014. He grew up in the job with same quickness as the Team. He always had to make big decisions and sometimes hard decisions as well but he’s a smart man. He knows how to adjust quickly and is always on his toes putting the right person in place. As a reminder you have to remember where this club is coming from as prior to 2015 Monaco Basket did not have a Facebook page or Twitter account and didn’t even have a website. He had to work on many projects in a very short period of time. He has a very crucial role with the club.

Yann also praised Yefimov, “As a GM, her has been a big part in the club’s recent success and it’s not just about the Euroleague, but he has always been able to build a consistent team. Often this has been done with players people wouldn’t expect like Alpha Diallo who he was able to get from Panathinaikos for a very small price because he is very active on the market and is a tough businessman. Even with Mike James it was not a given that he was going to come to Monaco but it was a process and opportunity. If we go back to when he started to work and had a lot less money, he always had one of two players that were good deals who ended up being worth much more later on in their careers. So he has a very big part in their success.”

With Monaco being such a newcomer to the Euroleague along with its quick success at the top level it’s clear that they have also earned the respect from the continental basketball community as whole Ohnona said, “Monaco was acknowledged by the rest of the basketball world when Mike James signed. This made a huge difference because before that they were like the new kid on the block, the new team. Monaco is nice but why would the other teams care if they are not a threat. The moment Mike James arrived, Monaco became a threat to the league and one becomes intrigued because everyone knows and respects Mike James in the basketball world. When you get a talent like that people start to look at you. The investment was made to get a recognition from the rest of Europe and they got it.

Paturle also brought up an excellent point as to how some of their French league opponents feel about their success, “There is surely some respect but also some kind of jealousy. The French league (LNB) has just voted new for anew luxury tax for next season and they want to tax Monaco who has the biggest salary budget in the league. It was a strange decision because our basketball has been asleep for more than 20 years and I think Monaco is the best thing more than anything else for LNB.”|

With the smallest Arena in the Euroleague, Monaco has been able to create a real atmosphere and energy due to a number of factors Paturle explained, “The arena is small but it is more than 4000 seats after a big renovation last summer and the fans are very close to the floor. I would say this is the surprise that Monaco now as a real basketball atmosphere with fans and the gym is quite full even for small league games. Tickets price are also quite reasonable (around 25 euros for Euroleague regular season and even for this playoff series) and the show is high quality. It’s not only Monaco fans in the arena but people that are coming from all of the neighboring areas.”
 
Turning to the series, Ohnona began to look at the front court matchup between Monaco bigs Donta Hall and Donatas Motiejunas and Maccabi’s Josh Nebo who had two weak games against them in the regular season, “I think Monaco bigs have a different profile which makes it hard for not just Josh Nebo but any of their opponents because Monaco is strong on the offensive boards. If Maccabi will win the series they will need to limit them and try and get all of the defensive rebounds. It’s decisive for them. I’m not quite sure about the matchup because what happened in the regular season doesn’t mean anything. Nebo could score 20 points and gets the rebounds so we will see because everything starts over.”

As for the backcourt, Mike James is always dangerous and alongside Jordan Loyd and are as good a pairing as Lorenzo Brown and Wade Baldwin.

“The key to me is the backcourt as Monaco has a lot of weapons between Loyd, James, Diallo and Okobo,” Ohnona said. “While not all of them, a lot of them can defend and play some very good defense. For Monaco the obvious identified threat for Maccabi is Wade Baldwin and Lorenzo Brown so they have the weapons to stop them. I am pretty sure they can’t stop them for five games but we will see what happens and if they get into the zone at one point.”

Paturle also spoke highly of Monaco’s guards, “The backcourt of Monaco with Loyd, Okobo and James is really high level talent offensively. Okobo who plays on the French national team has been very strong all season, but the question is, who will be able to stop the Maccabi backcourt on defense.”
 
As for who will win this series, Ohnona knows that winning on home court will be crucial, “If Monaco defends home court and gets the first two home court wins I don’t see how they would lose the series. If they lose one of those two games of course it changes everything because then you have to go to Maccabi’s arena and it’s so crazy and so irrational that everything becomes impossible to predict. I think that the two teams look a like a little bit in a lot of ways and it’s very uncertain as to what is going to happen.”

Paturle feels that the Cup win over Asvel can give Monaco a good boost heading into the playoffs, “The key could be the French Cup win in Paris. They lost the final of the league championship in 2019 and 2022 to Asvel and this has been a difficult mental hurdle for the team and the guys needed to win a final against Tony Parker’s club. This could give good energy for series against Maccabi. Apart from this, I would say like everyone else that you have to try and limit the impact of the fantastic pairing of Brown and Baldwin. This series could go to a game 5 and I’ll give Monaco a slim 51-49% edge.”