The visiting team’s guard delivered yet another masterclass performance to make light of the backcourt dynamo’s departure
Brilliant Nadir Hifi shows there is life at Paris after TJ Shorts
Spielbericht
3 Lesezeit
Regular Season
Round 6 of 38
Regular Season
Partizan Mozzart Bet BelgradePAR
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Paris BasketballPBB
Overview
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Many fans and a fair few pundits wondered how Paris Basketball would cope with the loss of livewire playmaker TJ Shorts, who joined the EuroLeague’s 2024 champs Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens during the offseason after two glorious years with the French team.
Some of them even predicted that Paris would finish firmly in the bottom half of the standings, after Shorts drove the team to the 2024 BKT EuroCup title followed by a playoff spot in the franchise’s debut season in Europe’s premier club competition.
Nadir Hifi, who played second fiddle to Shorts throughout their stint together, tore up that script most emphatically and emerged as the new team leader. Once again, he stepped up to the plate again with a flawless performance which inspired Paris to an 83-101 road rout of Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade, toying with his markers on offense as he mixed audacious layups with long-range efficiency.
Paris improved to 4-2 and Partizan, which sorely missed injured playmaker Carlik Jones, dropped to 3-3 after Hifi racked up 21 points, 6 boards and 4 assists while four of his teammates also finished in double digits. Sebastian Herrera dropped a career-high 17 points after shooting 5 of 7 from downtown and Yakuba Ouattara added 14, as Paris sank an impressive 17 of 30 from beyond the three-point arc.
Spotted on Thursday night in the imposing Belgrade Arena watching Partizan’s bitter city rival Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade beat Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 90-72, Hifi stayed humble after scoring 11 points in the fourth quarter to vanquish any hopes Partizan might have had of a late comeback.
“Like I said at halftime, we were always likely to win if we managed to stop them running and we did just that, as we shared the ball knowing how tough it is to win here,” Hifi said in his post-game comments. “I know this is a basketball country ad everybody here lives for the sport, so every time I have the opportunity to come here and watch basketball I’ll be coming around,” he added.
A fervent Belgrade crowd managed to lift the hosts in the first half but was completely subdued in the second as Duane Washington, who was given a huge pair of shoes to fill by sidelined duo Carlik Jones and Shake Milton, could not follow up on a good first half as he started to struggle after the break.
Herrera also shined in the second half as he sank a barrage of three-pointers to finish on 6 of 8 from the floor while Ouattara followed in his footsteps to sink 6 of 7, leaving Paris head coach Francesco Tabellini purring with delight.
“We got more stops and rebounded better in the second half and we competed on every single possession,” said the Italian tactician. “We got a nice win and as a EuroLeague newcomer, I really enjoyed playing in this amazing environment. We wanted to enjoy the privilege of being here but not just as spectators, so we did a very good job.”
Ouattara was just as pleased. “It’s always very special to win here and it’s our first road win against Partizan, hence we’re going to celebrate a little bit,” he said. “We knew they couldn’t keep up with us for 40 minutes so in the second half you could tell some of their guys got tired as we train at this pace in every practice.”
Truly enough, Partizan’s offense was ground to a halt in the third quarter after Paris held a slender 46-48 lead at halftime, with top scorer Sterling Brown struggling from all over. Brown came to life in the closing stages to finish as the game’s top scorer on 25 points, but his contribution came too little too late as Paris had already forged an unassailable lead.
Particularly visible were Partizan’s backcourt problems as the tiring Washington had no one to fall back on and the Serbian team will now be hard-pressed to strengthen the roster, with Marc Stein reporting that NBA guard Cam Payne is one of the reinforcements on coach Zeljko Obradovic’s radar.
Obradovic cut a dejected figure at the post-game press conference and highlighted that signing a top reinforcement is going to be no walk in the park for the Serbian outfit.
“Unfortunately, it’s part and parcel of what we do and we’ve got two massively important players injured; Shake Milton and notably Carlik Jones, the pack leader,” said Obradovic.
“It’s easy to spot a good player but hauling him in is another matter. Apart from his own desire to join the team being a requirement, you’ve got to be able to meet his demands and beat rivals who’ve got much bigger budgets. We’ll do whatever we can to make it happen.”
