Codi Miller-McIntyre's historic silver lining for Baskonia
Tuesday’s Play-In Showdown trip to Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv was a night to forget for Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz, which saw its hopes of advancing directly into the playoffs extinguished by a huge 113-85 defeat.
However, there were two silver linings.
First, the Spanish team’s season is not over yet, with one more chance to reach the last eight still up for grabs in Friday’s play-in decider. And second, Codi Miller-McIntyre delivered one of the greatest individual displays ever witnessed in the competition’s postseason history.
Miller-McIntyre rose above the mediocrity of his teammates to deliver a relentless performance throughout his 31 minutes on the floor. The guard finished with a highly impressive collection of 32 points on 11-of-13 two-point shooting and 2-of-4 from beyond the arc, along with 7 assists, 8 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 blocked shot for a PIR of 45 – nearly half his whole team’s overall PIR of 97.
That added up to the joint-best postseason performance this century, tying with the 45 PIR achieved by Carlton Myers for PAF Bologna and Alphonso Ford for Peristeri, both in the 2000-01 season.
What’s more, Miller-McIntyre's performance was the best achieved since the introduction of the modern playoffs format, eclipsing the 43 PIR registered by Luis Scola, who was also playing for Baskonia under coach Dusko Ivanovic, in 2005.
It wasn’t particularly surprising to see such figures from Miller-McIntyre, who earlier this season became only the third player this century to record a triple-double when he bagged 11 points, 11 rebounds and a competition record 20 assists in a Round 26 victory over LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne.
In just his first season in the competition, the 29-year-old Miller-McIntyre finished the regular season with impressive averages of 8.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, a league-high 7.2 assists and 13.5 PIR, forming an often deadly backcourt duo with Markus Howard, the competition’s top scorer.
Howard could not match his season average of 19.3 points in Tuesday’s game against Maccabi, scoring just 14 after converting 5 of his 14 field goal attempts.
But with Miller-McIntyre in historic form, Baskonia still has reason to hope that a 28-point defeat could be converted into a playoff-sealing victory on Friday night.