The EuroLeague debutants set a new standard with 52 attempts from behind the arc
Paris punished ALBA defense with record shooting night
Paris Basketball changed up its game to off-set an uncommon defense played by ALBA Berlin and the final result was setting a Turkish Airlines EuroLeague record for most three-pointers taken and a second straight road win.
Paris attempted a record 52 three-pointers and made 20 of them in an 83-92 victory over ALBA as the EuroLeague debutant finished its three-game road trip with two wins and now plays three consecutive home games.
Paris blew past the previous EuroLeague record of 45 threes taken by Montepaschi Siena during the 2007-08 season. And the reason the French side had all those shots was ALBA playing the unusual box-and-one defense to try to slow down TJ Shorts, who came into the game ranked second in the league this season in scoring with 19.8 per game.
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“ALBA’s strategy was to minimize TJ Shorts and let the other guys play the game with the box-and-one. In the first half, it worked. We were not hitting the shots, the open threes they were letting us shoot,” Paris head coach Tiago Splitter said.
“Fifty-two threes is crazy. But we still had the confidence to shoot those 52 threes and knock down 20. I’m glad our guys were strong mentally to keep shooting. Eventually, the ball is going to go in. They showed tonight that they have big character to knock down those shots. And the whole team worked for those shots. That was their strategy and I respect that. But we took advantage of it.”
Paris came into the game averaging 28 three-point attempts per game and hitting only 30.9%, which ranked 16th in the league. The French side connected on just 2 of 14 from long range in the first quarter and the team had made 7 of 26 in total in the first half - a percentage of 26.9%.
Splitter’s team connected on 13-of-26 three-point attempts - 50.0% - in the second half to get the win.
Nadir Hifi and Tyson Ward were the two biggest beneficiaries of Paris’s attack. Hifi drained 7 triples in scoring a career-high 25 points, and Ward knocked down 6 threes for a career-high 23 points.
“It was a bad start. They let us shoot the open threes. We missed a lot. We came back in the second half and shot with confidence to get the win. We can be proud of ourselves,” said Hifi, who attempted 19 three-pointers, which tied for second all-time for a single player, evening Markus Howard and Tomas Kelati and missing Alexey Shved’s high by just 2.
Ward meanwhile gave a lot of praise to Shorts, who was limited to 11 points on 6 shot attempts - 8.4 shots fewer than his average attempts thus far this season - while dishing out 9 assists with just 2 turnovers.
“He’s leading the pack. It’s nothing but big ups to him. The team was playing a different defense that you don’t see too often, and he handled it well, maturely, and he passed the ball when he needed to. He’s one of the best players in the league,” Ward said about the Paris team leader.
Paris is a newcomer to the league, but the French side has already shown it can adapt to a new situation and come out on top.