By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Paris basketball is for real and that can’t be denied after their big 84-80 win over defending EuroLeague champion Panathinaikos.
Nadir Hifi with 20 points and TJ Shorts with 16 and seven assists led the charge for last season’s EuroCup winners who got their first Turkish Airlines EuroLeague win in style after losing two games in the two previous rounds.
Mathias Lessort with 19 points and 11 rebounds couldn’t save the day, Kendrick Nunn added 16 points and Lorenzo Brown had 14 as the hosts simply outplayed a snobbish Panathinaikos.
It sounds crazy but the champions led for the last time in the game in the opening minutes (9-7) and couldn’t tie the game after that.
As coach Ergin Ataman said: “We made 17 turnovers and we had bad decisions. They got 17 offensive rebounds which means we made mistakes also on this. It was a great game for them and we didn’t get to find our spaces”.
With that being said, Panathinaikos is protesting the result due to a mistake in timekeeping. On the other side, as last season’s EuroCup MVP TJ Shorts put it: “It’s been a great day”.
The absolute upset
Paris at home proved quite feisty, getting a 17-12 advantage and leading by two (21-19) at the end of the first period. However, when the score jumped to 39-25 everyone understood that the French side meant business.
Panathinaikos reacted and at halftime, the Greeks trailed by six (45-39) with everyone expecting the momentum to change in favor of the guests.
Still, Paris managed to close the third period up by 10 (69-59), and with 23 seconds left TJ Shorts scored and Paris was still up by eight (81-73).
A furious charge followed with Panathinaikos making a crazy 7-2 run in 20 seconds (83-80) but it was too late.
Sebastian Herrera with one free throw iced the game (84-80).
Photo credit: EuroLeague