This Tuesday, for the 16th day of the Euroleague, Paris Basketball was dominated on its floor by Barcelona.
It still doesn’t happen. Overtaken in all areas of play by Barcelona in great form in the first period, Paris basketball sank again at home on Tuesday evening (85-69), during the 16th day of the Euroleague.
With five victories for 11 defeats – the fourth in a row – the Parisians remain far from the upper part of the table synonymous with at least play-offs for the quarter-finals, three successes behind Olympiakos (10th). Facing Barcelona, which the current dynamic (three victories in a row before the match) announced as favorites, Francesco Tabellini’s men tried to make a fantastic comeback.
Skip the ad
But as against Zalgiris Kaunas (defeat 108-105) less than a week earlier, they especially paid dearly for their weak moments, crystallized in a first period where everything or almost everything went wrong. Too little outside skill (2/12), too few free throws converted (1/5), too many lost balls (9), and too many missed opportunities contrasted severely with the offensive strength of Kevin Punter (21 points) and others (6/11 at three points, 8/9 on free throws).
At 52-29 at the break, the operation already looked very complicated for a Paris team which still only has two home wins in the Euroleague since the start of the season and had already conceded more than 100 points against Kaunas and Monaco. In reaction, Nadir Hifi’s teammates tried to wake up their audience, encouraged by a 9-0 scored upon returning from the locker room and the awakening of Jared Rhoden and Lamar Stevens.
“Paris is not over”launched at the same time the speaker of the Parisian room, hoping for a turnaround in the situation which would perhaps have given a different taste to the rest of this Euroleague season for the Parisians. But there was no gift before Christmas.
