Chima Moneke on Hedgeout.net about collapsing vs Olympiacos, ‘meaningless’ 3rd-place Game vs Barcelona

Reporting from Kaunas

Chima Moneke didn’t mince his words when he talked about the loss to Olympiacos in the semi-final and Sunday’s Third-Place Game vs Barcelona.

The Nigerian forward spoke with Hedgeout.net on Saturday and called the third period vs the “Reds” ’embarrassing’ (“we just collapsed”) and noted that the third-place game vs the “Blaugrana” is ‘meaningless’, as the Monegasques didn’t come to Kaunas to finish third or fourth.

On Friday’s semi-final, Chima Moneke and Monaco led by 12 at halftime (29-41), but Olympiacos came back in the third and outscored them 27-2 to take control and cruise to the victory, as the Monegasques never recovered from that collapse.

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Here is what Chima Moneke told Hedgeout.net and Yiannis Bouranis after Monaco’s practice at the Zalgirio Arena on Saturday:

On what happened in the third quarter vs Olympiacos: “We just collapsed, it was embarrassing, a very unfortunate timing, we were feeling good going into the second half and then this happened, it’s bad, very bad”

On the Third-Place Game vs Barcelona and if its important for the team: “No, it means nothing, I can’t lie. We didn’t come out here to finish third or fourth, so it is very disappointing not to ply in the Championship Game, given how good we played in the opening half, but it will be much better to finish the season with a win than a loss. We will go out there and try to win, for sure”

On Monaco’s season and if it ends on a disappointing way: “It doesn’t take away from the fact that reaching the Final Four is a big deal. A lot of people say a bad game leads to a bad season, a lot of them are close minded, we don’t think like that.

“Any team that goes to the Final Four had a good season. Obviously, every team has differet expectations, but for us, going to the Final Four in our second EuroLeague season, after making the playoffs last year, of course we had a great season”

Chima Moneke spent 10 minutes on the floor on Sunday and had two points, on 1/12 shooting, one rebound, one steal and one assist for a PIR of -1.

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