Paris topped Bresse 77-64 in Game 1 of the EuroCup Finals thanks to a great performance by its guards and outstanding team defense
Paris's guards, defense made the difference
Article
3 Mins read
Paris Basketball opened the BKT EuroCup finals with a 77-64 victory over Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse at Adidas Arena in the French capital thanks to a great performance by its guards and outstanding team defense.
The hosts simply rolled in the first half, claiming a 54-31 halftime lead, which was enough to control the game until the final buzzer. Paris's guards were on fire before halftime, as T.J. Shorts, Sebastian Herrera and Nadir Hifi combined for exactly half of the team's first-half points.
Paris was held to just 23 second-half points but its defense allowed Coach Tuomas Iisalo's team to keep a double-digit margin all the way until the final buzzer. Widely seen as an offensive-minded team, Coach Iisalo took the chance to talk about his team's defense in the press conference room.
"I think from the outside we are viewed as an offensive team but within the team, everybody knows that the defense and the rebounds, those are the real things that bring the consistency of results. And that's what you want to do if you want to be a great team," Coach Iisalo said. "The 33 points Bourg scored in the second half is a really low number, and it says a lot about our commitment to the defense because there were several situations where we turned it over and they had fastbreak situations, etc., and we were still able to keep a very good offensive team to 33 points. There were definitely some good things also in the second half."
Asked about it, Paris's star guards agreed that defense is the key to their system.
"We were aggressive at both ends of the floor. We know their plays and how to react against them and I think we had a good win," Herrera said. "Our fans did very well, helping us when we were doing well but also when we weren't doing that well, so I am happy about it."
"It is not just coming one day. We worked since August, but we enjoy playing together," Nadir added. "It doesn't matter offense or defense, I feel everybody is locked in and this is the most important thing for me."
"When you get stops and then you get a chance to run, it just feeds everybody's energy," Shorts said. "You feel even better when you take a shot because you just got the stop on one end. So it is an incredible feeling to just string stops together and turn that into offense."
Paris finished with the three guards scoring in double digits. Shorts led all scorers with 15 points, Hifi added 13 and Herrera 11. Shorts received his 2023-24 EuroCup MVP award right before the game, and said he believes hearing "MVP" charts from the crowd inspired him.
"I will never get used to it. It is a feeling that every kid dreams of growing up. And I never take it for granted. So whenever the fans are cheering MVP, whenever people are congratulating me, I'm super thankful," Shorts said. "I'm super grateful because the journey I went on was it was not an easy one. So it is something that I would never take for granted. And I'll never get used to fans chanting MVP, it's great."
Herrera and Nadir agreed that it was an important win, but there is unfinished business and focusing on Game 2 on Friday is the only way forward.
"We sacrifice a lot in practice, working on defense to help every teammate and I think that was shown tonight," Herrera said. "But we haven't done anything yet. It is just one game. We need another win."
Iisalo is optimistic about his team's chances, believing that we haven't seen his team's full potential yet.
"We know our defense is going to give us wins. That's the most important part. After that, on offense we got what we wanted. We had options to shoot but defense is the most important thing for us," Hifi added. ""We've just got to do the job again on Friday."
"I don't know how many games we played this season, probably around 55 official games already. And we feel like we can still do it better," Coach Iisalo said. "We feel like as a group, that is something that defines us."
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