Paris Basketball can still dream of a direct spot in the playoffs
Paris dominates ALBA 72-63, to stay alive for sixth place

Paris Basketball did its part to remain in the race for a direct spot in the playoffs with a convincing 72-63 home victory over ALBA Berlin. Paris went on a 15-4 run spanning the middle quarters to take control and improve to 19-15. The win combined with Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul’s triumph at FC Bayern Munich kept alive the sixth-place dreams of Paris, which needs Anadolu Efes Istanbul, FC Barcelona and Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade all to lose on the final day of the regular season.
Mikael Jantunen and Nadir Hifi led the way for the winners with 15 points each, Tyson Ward scored 12 points and TJ Shorts chipped in 10 points and 7 assists. ALBA dropped its fifth straight game and ninth of the last 10 games to finish the season in last place with a 5-29 record. Justin Bean scored 14 in the defeat.
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After Paris opened the scoring, Martin Hermannsson scored 5 straight points in his 100th game for a 2-5 early lead. The hosts temporarily took the lead before a Bean three-point play made it 9-10. Hifi converted a three-pointer play and Collin Malcolm buried a triple in a 10-0 run to move ahead 19-10. ALBA did not score for nearly 3 minutes and a Matt Thomas three-pointer trimmed the gap to 19-14, which was 22-14 after 10 minutes.
The hosts held ALBA to just 1 free throw in the first 3 minutes of the second quarter and Ward and Jantunen buried a three-pointer in a 10-1 surge to lead 32-15. The Paris offense dried up a bit with just one basket in the next 5+ minutes and a 0-8 spurt pulled ALBA within 36-27. Paris punched back with the next 8 points, including back-to-back triples from Jantunen and Sebastian Herrera for a 44-27 cushion. The score was 46-31 at the break.
Paris’s defense held strong to start the second half, not allowing ALBA to score in almost the first 5 minutes and the home fans watched the advantage extend to 20 points at 51-31 thanks also to 4 ALBA turnovers. The margin grew to 21 points before the visitors trimmed it to 16 points at 55-39. And the hosts led 60-39 after 30 minutes.
Ward scored the first 5 points of the final frame to build the advantage to 26 points. The home side was still up 70-47 with more than 5 minutes to go. ALBA did not stop fighting though and put together a 2-16 surge to make it 72-63 with 63 seconds to play. But the hole was too big.