Asvel was not lacking in desire on Friday in Athens, but the French Champion, plagued by doubt for ten days – four consecutive defeats (two in the Championship and two in the Euroleague) – slowly sank in the port of Piraeus facing Olympiakos. And it was not the encouragement of coach TJ Parker, a calm Olympian while his troops missed their match (54-89), which changed anything.
Faced with the current third Euroleague (11 wins, 5 losses), the Rhone have never had the solutions, individual or collective, to tickle the triple winner of the competition (1997, 2012 and 2013), put on orbit by a former member of the Villeurbanne house, the Moustapha Fall pivot (8 points).
Despite an interesting start (4-0, 2nd), the deficiencies and the lack of physical impact were too obvious to break the Greek waves, which quickly suffocated Youssoupha Fall (11 points, 6 rebounds) and his family. Distanced after ten minutes (10-20, 10th), Asvel, sometimes nervous like two technical faults collected on the same action by William Howard and Chris Jones, definitely cracked in the wake, and returned to the locker room head down (21-39, 20th).
While he hoped for a better success in the recovery, Parker saw the gap grow even more (65-38, 30th), and resigned himself to managing the end of the game by saving body and soul. The fall in the standings (7 wins, 9 losses, 12th) is far from being crippling, but it calls for a second wind that the club cannot find for the time being.
35
The 35-point gap conceded by Asvel constitutes the club’s second heaviest defeat in the Euroleague since its return to competition (2019). In 2019-2020, the team then coached by Zvezdan Mitrovic conceded 41 points at Bayern Munich (104-63) for their third match.
Élie Okobo in the trap
As a symbol, while Asvel’s victories were most often linked to his individual performances, Élie Okobo had all the trouble in the world to express himself. Spared, replacing at kickoff, the former leader of the Phoenix Suns waited until the middle of the third quarter to open his personal counter (8 points in the end, 3 of 9 on shooting). Faced with a close guard, he also lacked solutions in attack (3 assists), which his coach did not fail to stress.
8
In his last three Euroleague matches, Élie Okobo has averaged eight points. Light years away from his first thirteen outings (18.5 points average)
« I’m not worried about just one player but about the teamParker hissed after the game. Elie is part of the team. He is in the hard because the opponents now know him, they adapt against him. His attack will come back but we have to improve collectively. “Progress that seemed difficult to envision, while the workforce is still marked by the ups and downs of recent weeks.
« It’s not easy for us, pleaded the technician. We started diving when we lost David Lighty to injury (main). Raymar Morgan (herniated disc) did not play a game with us, we had our share of injuries, we were affected by the Covid … We still have three games by the end of the year and this time a little time to train, which is sorely lacking. We don’t travel as well as the other teams, and sometimes that drains our energy. Suffice to say that the postponement of the match against Nanterre (Covid), scheduled for Sunday, while the arrival of Nando De Colo’s Fenerbahçe next Thursday is looming, is timely.
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