Monaco beat Red Star 91-75 to become Eurocup Group A leader

BELGRADE - Monaco, runners-up of the French Pro A League, beat Serbian champion Red Star (Crvena Zvezda) 91-75 (29-29, 15-16, 32-17, 15-13) to lead Group A of the Eurocup after the 7th round of the competition here on Wednesday.

Points came pouring down, as the game started at the Aleksander Nikolic arena in front of some 5,000 basketball fans.

Early offensive of Billy Baron and Branko Lazic was answered by Monaco's Derek Needham and Ian Hummer, bringing guests in a slight lead at the start of the quarter. However, Joe Ragland set the score even towards the quarter's end by scoring two field goals and a three-pointer to 29-29.

Excitement and hope of fans whose team was still undefeated at home Eurocup games this season, continued at the beginning of the second quarter. Neither team was able to separate, in a significantly slower scoring tempo than in the previous period.

In 17th minute, teams were once again tied at 39-39. Mark Zirbes scored a field goal just three seconds before the half-time to keep the home team on top by a single point (45-44).

Monaco took back the initiative at the beginning of the second half by managing to draw fouls, score free-throws and afterwards quickly built a double-digit lead (52-65), expanding the gap to 20 points - thanks to efficient scoring of Needham, Elmedin Kikanovic and Paul Lacombe (54-74).

Red Star tried to catch up, but was disrupted with a timely timeout called by Monaco's coach. In the last seconds Borisa Simanic reduced the gap to 14 points at the end of the quarter (62-76).

In the final period, guests answered Red Star's struggle to reduce the gap further - with a tight defense, which resulted in less points on both sides and prevented a late turnover.

Needham scored 21 points, along with 6 assists and was best in ranks of the guest team, followed by Kikanovic (17 points), Lacombe (16 points, 6 assists) and Yakuba Outtara (16 points). On the other side, Baron scored 14 points, while Ragland added 12 more for Red Star.

Next week, Red Star will play in Spain against Andorra, while Monaco is to host Ulm.