The confidence of Sylvain Francisco played a big role for the Lithuanian champs, too
Zalgiris hit Paris hard in the second half for remarkable win
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Zalgiris Kaunas matched its greatest-ever comeback at Zalgirio Arena by rallying from 20 points down to defeat Paris Basketball. Every Zalgiris fan knows to expect an incredible effort when they buy a ticket to watch the Lithuanian champs in action, but what coach Andrea Trinchieri's men served up on Thursday night was quite out of the ordinary.
The 83-81 victory not only featured a historic comeback, but it also came down to the wire. Zalgiris won only after a topsy-turvy final minute in which Paris's star guard TJ Shorts missed two free throws and a layup with his team down two and – after Shorts managed to tie it – Sylvain Francisco buried a game-winning jumper with 2.5 seconds remaining.
The comeback was not some stroke of coaching genius, with changes in tactics and trickery. It came down to good old-fashioned effort.
When Francisco was asked after the game what Trinchieri said at halftime that changed things, he responded: "To hit them. That's the most important thing. When we hit them, they don't know what to do."
The "hitting" in this case was, of course, metaphoric and Trinchieri explained it in a little more detail.
"[Paris is] a team that feed their energy with your weaknesses. When you are soft, they feel it, and they play harder and more energy. They knock down big shots. In the first half, we could not catch them. We were one, two sometimes three steps late on everything. It's not a matter of tactics. It's a matter of how you play the game," Trinchieri explained.
"We had a very productive and efficient talk [at halftime]. In the second half, we didn't change much. A couple of adjustments, but we changed the way we were doing everything. We played with tons of energy. We never give up. They scored some big buckets. We didn't stop playing and we won one of the best games of our season."
The effort that Trinchieri spoke of was epitomized by many players, starting with Francisco, who after not scoring at all in the first half had 8 points in a 15-0 start to the second quarter. That was the "hitting" Trinchieri sought and it could be seen by the naked eye in the team's revitalized effort as well as in the stat sheet.
Zalgiris made 2 of 14 threes in the first half and 5 of 11 in the second. After being outrebounded 12-15 in the first 20 minutes, Zalgiris dominated the glass 24-10 in the last 20. Zalgiris outscored Paris 10-3 in second-chance points in the second half.
When asked about the contributions of specific players, Trinchieri did not take the bait.
"We will commit sin if we just say [Edgaras Ulanovas or Arnas Butkevicius]. I believe this is really a team win. We won't forget [Laurynas Birutis]. We won't forget the present that Bryant [Dunston] gave us. Isaiah [Wong] for all his defense on Shorts. I can go for hours now, so I would not reduce the game to names."
But one player who he did speak more about was Francisco, of whom he said, "the first half, he was a tragedy."
Two days after the French guard pledged his future to the club by signing a contract extension through 2027, he came out flat. Francisco missed all 5 of his shots in the first half before coming alive for 15 points and 5 assists in the third and fourth quarters, during which he accumulated a PIR of 25.
Not only were Francisco's skills on full display in the second half, but his confidence as well.
"I'm a confident guy, so if I just shoot the ball, I know I'm gonna make it. So for me, it doesn't matter if I'm gonna miss five shots in a row, but I know the last five shots, the most important ones, I'm gonna make it," he said and then went through the game-winning shot.
"The coach told me to get the ball and go. Bryant was supposed to set me a screen, but I knew I had [Tyson] Ward [defending me] and just give him and in-and-out and shot the ball for two. For me, I knew I was gonna make it."
And after the way he and Zalgiris played throughout the second half, the fans at Zalgirio Arena were pretty confident that Francisco was going to make it too. And now they can look forward to seeing such shots sail through the nets for a few more seasons.