To get through two overtimes on the road to stay unbeaten, everyone on Paris Basketball's roster contributed.
Paris's next-man-up mentality sealed double-OT win in London
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Despite the London Lions sending the game to overtime twice and its star T.J. Shorts among several players who fouled out in the extra times, Paris Basketball leaned on its next-man-up mentality to celebrate a golden road win at the Copperbox Arena on Tuesday.
Paris was outscored 25-8 in the third quarter and London took a 66-56 lead into the fourth, but that's when Shorts scored 10 of his 24 points to inspire his team's comeback. The visitors were up 81-84 with 0:07 to go, but London star Sam Dekker knocked down a huge triple to send the game to its first overtime.
Despite receiving that blow, Paris saw Mikael Jantunen step up and score 4 points for an 87-92 lead. Nonetheless, London bounced back again and Gabe Olaseni scored a decisive basket to force just the third double-overtime EuroCup game in the last five years.
"I'm still speechless about the performance of the guys, because we were on the ropes a couple of times, especially in a very bad third quarter and then the fourth quarter," Paris head coach Tuomas Iisalo gushed after the spectacular victory.
"We came back and we came very close to seal the game, but then an incredible shot by Dekker in a situation where we couldn't foul even if we wanted to. And then the same situation, again up in the first overtime... and to have that taken away… It says a lot about the character, says a lot about the mental fortitude of our guys."
Even more incredible in that second overtime was that the guests saw both Jantunen and Tyson Ward, who had netted 12 points each until then, foul out. Mehdy Ngouama, who had scored huge baskets late in regulation time, had already committed 5 fouls and Shorts, the team leader, was soon to follow them to the bench. But Paris didn't give up. More protagonists would emerge, as the visitors entered into Lernaean-Hydra mode.
"It's incredible," Shorts said afterwards. "Every single guy stepped up tonight. We had three guys fouled out, buys playing big minutes. From the top guy to the bottom guy, I can call out every guy that stepped on the court and think of big plays that they made to win this game.”
Nadir Hifi and Bandja Sy stepped up in the last minutes of the game, with the former sinking a triple and the latter being decisive at both ends, as he recorded 4 points and 2 steals late in the game to seal the guests' fourth victory of the season.
"Even though some of our key players fouled out, we always found new contributors from the bench," Iisalo added. "I'm very, very proud of our group."
Shorts scored a team-high 24 points, Hifi added 20 and Collin Malcolm had 16. Paris's bench scored 51 of the team's 106 points of the night.
Most importantly, Paris demonstrated to other BKT EuroCup contenders that it has the roster and the resilience to keep competing even without its stars. That quality not only makes them unpredictable and one of the favorites to win the trophy this season.