Nick Calathes, all-time top assistant in the Euroleague in Barça's victory against Monaco

Euroleague

matchday 28That's how it was

Barca

88 83

Finalized

AS Monaco

Nick Calathes, this Thursday against Monaco at the Palau.AFP7 via Europa Press (Europa Press)

With 22 points and a PIR of 31, shooting guard Dante Exum led Barça's narrow victory at the Palau against Monaco on a night in which point guard Nick Calathes broke Vassilis Spanoulis' record as the top assister in Euroleague history ( 1,612 by 1,607).

After two periods of minimal advantages (42-36 at halftime), Barça opened a gap of 16 points in the third quarter (57-41, min.25) but Monaco leveled the game in the last period (66-66, min 32), condemning the game to an agonizing end.

In the decisive minutes, the blaugrana side redoubled their defensive aggressiveness, driven by a hyperactive Exum who took on responsibilities alongside Calathes and center Brandon Davies, and sealed the victory from the free throw line.

In this way, Sarunas Jasikevicius's team secured the lead for another day and extended the winning streak to 12 in all competitions despite the 19 points of point guard Mike James, Monaco's top scorer.

But beyond the triumph culé, the great protagonist of the night was Nick Calathes.

The azulgrana came into the game with 1,606 assists, so he only needed two.

Finally, he signed up six.

An accessible challenge for the Greek-American player, third highest assistant in the EuroLeague this season with an average of 5.3 per game and who has not distributed less than three in any game this campaign.

Despite the fact that the change in format of the tournament has multiplied the number of matches, the truth is that Calathes has not benefited from this factor since he has broken Spanoulis's record having played practically 100 fewer matches: 268 versus 358. Not in vain, the number 99 of the Catalan team has been the player who has distributed the most assists in each of the last four editions of the Euroleague.

Next station, the steal table

The Barça point guard, with an average of six assists per game in the Euroleague throughout his career, holds the all-time record in this section, followed by Frenchman Thomas Heurtel and Argentinean Facundo Campazzo (5.3), and very ahead of Spanoulis (4.5).

In a way, Calathes' record is also a moral triumph for Panathinaikos, a club with which the current Barça guard has played eight of his ten seasons in the Euroleague and distributed 1,260 of his 1,612 assists in the competition.

Spanoulis, who hung up his boots in the summer of 2021 at the age of 38, established himself as an Olympiacos legend after playing 11 seasons at the eternal rival Panathinaikos, an entity in which he played for four seasons before moving to the rojiblanco team from Athens.

Now, Calathes points to the stealing record owned by another Hellenic basketball icon, and in this case also from Panathinaikos, such as Dimitris Diamantidis, who recovered a total of 434 balls in 278 games.

With just turned 33 years old, the Barcelona base is second in the historical classification with 355 recoveries and, if he maintains this season's average of 1.3 steals per game, he would need 61 games to reach it.

Barcelona, ​​88 - Monaco, 83

Barça

: Calathes (10), Laprovittola (7), Exum (22), Mirotic (11), Sanli (9) -initial team-, Davies (11), Sergi Martínez (-), Hayes-Davis (9), Kuric (2) and Jokubaitis (7).

Monaco

: James (19), Westermann (8), Diallo (10), Thomas (6), Motiejunas (14) -initial team-, Lee (2), Bacon (16), Motum (2), Boutsielle (-) , Ouattara (-) and Hall (6).

Referees

: Borys Ryzhyk (UCR), Anne Panther (ALE) and Luka Kardum (ISR).

Palau Blaugrana.

5,400 spectators.

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