It is the French club's first year in the competition, but you wouldn't think it based on their performances
Paris is already looking like a EuroLeague mainstay
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3 Mins read
Winning a game in the highly competitive Turkish Airlines EuroLeague is anything but an easy task.
Securing victories in as many as six tight affairs by beating each of the opponents by single digits is another thing altogether, let alone as the competition’s debutant team. That shows some strong character from both the players and coaching staff, and that’s precisely what Paris Basketball has demonstrated this term.
A slow start with two straight defeats was followed by Paris’s first-ever EuroLeague victory in Round 3, which came against the reigning champion in Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, no less. If coach Tiago Splitter’s side sent a message with that result, the way that his men bounced back from a narrow 109-107 defeat at FC Bayern Munich has been remarkable, with Paris notching five straight victories to improve to a 6-3 record, joint second best in the EuroLeague.
“The guys are really buying in and playing hard every night,” Coach Splitter told EuroLeague TV after Wednesday night’s 83-77 victory over Zalgiris Kaunas. “This is just a display of their discipline, how hard they play and how togetherness is a big value in the team.”
After narrowly outscoring Zalgiris 17-16 in the first quarter, Paris pushed to pull away in the second. Yet, Zalgiris, which came into the game ranking fifth in offensive rebounds with 12.4 per game, picked up as many as 9 boards that offered the guests scores off second-chance opportunities. Paris still managed to take a 40-36 lead into the second half, when the hosts protected the boards and outrebounded Zalgiris 21-14 to control the rhythm of the game.
“In the second quarter we could see that a lot of the reason why they were staying in the game was the second-chance opportunities,” Kevarrius Hayes, who paired his 10 points with a season-high 9 rebounds against his former team, admitted. “We cut that down, we were able to secure the rebounds and get out in open court and it really worked out in our favor.”
Having recorded six victories with an average difference of just over 5 points, Paris has shown that it has what it takes to look in the eye of any opponent in the competition. The 2023-24 BKT EuroCup winner now has a tough assignment to keep this streak going as on Friday it is off to Spain, where it will face the current EuroLeague co-leader in FC Barcelona (7-2).