Can we make a bigger difference? Eight months after the intoxication of a coronation in the Coupe de France, the Momentum is now stuck in the red zone, dead last in the standings. Beaten in Fos-sur-Mer on Friday evening (75-83), the Béarnais club is now certain that it cannot dream of more than a simple maintenance in Betclic Élite. But for that, the only solution to save yourself is to win against…
Can we make a bigger difference? Eight months after the intoxication of a coronation in the Coupe de France, the Momentum is now stuck in the red zone, dead last in the standings. Beaten in Fos-sur-Mer on Friday evening (75-83), the Béarnais club is now certain that it cannot dream of more than a simple maintenance in Betclic Élite. But for that, the only solution to save itself remains to impose itself against its direct competitors, which the EBPLO is still strictly unable to do for the moment…
Mistakes at post 5
And yet, the start had an air of spring nostalgia, that time so far away when Eric Bartecheky’s team martyred the competition. Desire, energy, combativeness under the panels, skill (4/6 from three points in the first quarter), the perfect cocktail to quickly gain an interesting lead (15 -25, 9th), in the wake of a monumental Enzo Shahrvin.
Except that it was not a game of fear for nothing: it was above all the approximations that reigned (18 lost balls in the first half) and such a series was not expected to last. Penalized by the quick faults of its doublet of big men – 2 in 118 seconds for Vitalis Chikoko and 4 from the 15th minute for Shahrvin -, a deficit cruelly underlined by the dubious passage of Ada Sane, the Elan let Fos return to the match (35-31, 16th).
If a lull born from captain Giovan Oniangue and Markeith Cummings made it possible to avoid too painful headaches at half-time (43-43), the second blade arrived on the return from the locker room. Ironically, it was above all the work of Allan Dokossi, the man who had signed with Pau this summer, before freeing himself from his commitment. While he had a series of disappointing performances so far, the southern winger was the one who pressed the hardest on the head of the Elan, until planting a miraculous shot from distance (58-50, 28th minute), really not his specialty.
Poor fourth quarter…
At the time, Fos had an immense merit: that of knowing how to seize his chance, exactly what the Palois failed to do. Held in the game by two prize-winning arrows signed Sane and Sim before the fourth quarter (58-56, 30th minute), Captain Oniangue’s troops did not exploit the gifts of the Southerners: a 0/4 on free throws for start the money-time and some misplaced possessions on the way.
