The French club has suffered three very close defeats to Saras Jasikevicius’s team so far this season
Fourth time lucky? Paris aiming to bounce back against Fenerbahce
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Heading into Game 1 of their playoff showdown on Tuesday night, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and Paris Basketball had already sent a signal of how close this series might be.
Their first-ever matchup came in Paris in Round 17 of the regular season, when the Turkish team sneaked away with an 83-87 win after overturning a double-digit first quarter deficit. Then, in Round 31, an even closer battle again saw Fenerbahce recover a big margin as Nigel Hayes-Davis’s buzzer-beating three-pointer secured a dramatic 101-100 victory.
Those two thrillers sparked hopes that we were in for a treat during this five-game quarter-final, and the opener certainly didn’t disappoint.
Paris started strong to lead by 6 midway through the first, but Fener fought back to take a 7-point lead into the halftime break. And then the second half was a constant source of momentum swings, with neither team able to take control and stamp its authority on the action.
Between Nadir Hifi’s three-pointer for a 54-55 Paris lead midway through the third quarter and Errick McCollum’s triple to make it 74-72 for Fenerbahce nine minutes later, there were no less than 12 lead changes, with neither team leading by more than 3 points.
Heading into the final minute of regulation, Hifi’s fifth triple of the night to make it 80-78 ensured the outcome was anyone’s guess for the final few possessions. But Paris missed its last chance to go ahead when TJ Shorts was off the mark, then Wade Baldwin sealed the deal with a coolly converted long two-point strike with just 10 seconds remaining for the final points of the night as Fenerbahce wrapped up an 83-78 Game 1 triumph.
That means now this season between the teams it’s Fenerbahce 3, Paris 0... but with a combined difference of just 10 points over those three contests. So anyone expecting Fenerbahce to simply roll its way into the Final Four over the next couple of games may be sorely mistaken, and Hayes-Davis certainly sees it that way.
“The mindset going into this is that it’s a best-of-five series,” he told EuroLeague TV after Tuesday’s showdown. “You’ve got to break it down into a season. Each game is one season. Make or break, do or die. We had one season today, the game’s over, we won it, but we have a new season that starts on Thursday. So we have to watch the film tomorrow, try to figure out how we can improve, do a little bit better and try to get the same result.”
Visiting coach Tiago Splitter definitely isn’t in the mood to surrender, saying: “We saw some of the stuff that we prepared that worked, some that didn’t, and I think we’ve got to regroup, watch film, get to practice and walk through some of the stuff.
“Hopefully we’ll have a better shooting night – it feels like we had a bunch of open shots that our shooters didn’t make. We’re playing against a great team and we’ve got to be more prepared next time.”
One specific area where Paris definitely needs to be better prepared is protecting its backboard. Fenerbahce crashed the glass to the tune of 19 offensive rebounds on Tuesday, enabling it to score 21 second-chance points compared to just 8 for Paris.
Between two teams so closely matched, that’s clearly a significant statistic. So if Paris can rectify its defensive rebounding by Thursday night, don’t rule out the French team making it fourth time lucky in its battles with Fener.