The playmaker proved himself to be one of the league’s most effective all-round backcourt stars
Darius Thompson outshines Panathinaikos stars to give Valencia huge win
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 14 of 38
Regular Season
Panathinaikos AKTOR AthensPAO
7989
Valencia BasketVBC
Overview
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Kendrick Nunn, Kostas Sloukas, Jerian Grant, TJ Shorts… Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens boasts arguably one of the most formidable groups of backcourt talent that European basketball has ever seen.
On Friday night, though, Valencia Basket playmaker Darius Thompson eclipsed that galaxy of stars with a fabulous multifaceted performance, guiding his team to an eyebrow-raising 79-89 road victory, ending Panathinaikos’s four-game winning run and sending Los Taronjas into a share of second place in the standings.
Thompson, in his first season with Valencia after earlier stints with Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz and Anadolu Efes Istanbul, dazzled in Athens by combining 19 points, 6 assists, 8 rebounds and 2 steals for a PIR of 28.
Outshining his heralded opponents was certainly not an easy task, and the early stages suggested that Panathinaikos would enjoy another successful evening courtesy of its own backcourt talent: Sloukas, Grant and Shorts all had 3 assists before the midway point in the second quarter, during which time Nunn had predictably become the game’s first double-digit scorer.
But Valencia stayed in the game through long-range shooting, with 10 different players attempting no less than 21 three-pointers before halftime. The Spanish team’s accuracy was, however, more miss than hit with plenty of open looks missed, allowing Panathinaikos to stay in front and restricting Pedro Martinez’s men to just 38 first-half points.
But there was little deviance from that strategy in the second half, with a three-point strike from Thompson featuring in a 9-0 run which took the Taronjas into the lead – an advantage that was protected in the last second of the end of the third period when Kam Taylor beat the buzzer to strike his third triple of the evening.
Another burst of three-point shooting, with conversions by Nate Reuvers and the ever-dangerous Taylor, saw the visitors' lead stretch as high as 10 points, 65-75, early in the fourth. But there was still plenty of time on the clock. As the atmosphere intensified, Grant’s spectacular save on the baseline, setting up Shorts for a three-pointer, helped the Greens fight back to a single-score deficit, 74-77, with still four minutes remaining.
That, though, was the signal for Thompson to provide the exclamation mark on his special performance, delivering not only the game’s defining moment but also its most spectacular: receiving a pass from Omari Moore in full stride just inside the three-point arc, Thompson took off and exploded all over the defense of Juancho Hernangomez to detonate a brutal right-handed slam, achieving the ultimate Athens accolade of silencing the usually raucous home fans.
It was surely one of the dunks of the season, and also a moment to suck the air out of a Panathinaikos team which never looked like recovering. Indeed, Valencia was even able to increase its lead in the final minutes, appropriately finishing the game with another score from Thompson to seal a double-digit final margin.
The 30-year-old guard was understated in his post-game reaction, preferring to let his action speak louder than words as he told EuroLeague TV: “I’m glad we got the win, that’s all that matters to me. We tried to play with as much energy as possible, and we found a way to come out with the win.”
Triumphant coach Martinez, however, was much more effusive after watching his team prove that its outstanding form at the new Roig Arena – with a 6-1 home record – can be matched by hard-earned victories against top-class opponents on the road.
“We played like we wanted to in practice: with rhythm, with short rotations and the players understanding perfectly that our moment has to arrive if we play hard and with passion,” Martinez enthused. “Our third quarter was magnificent – our pace, our mentality in defense, our activity… it was great.”
Reflecting on the qualities that make Valencia such a difficult opponent, Martinez did not shy away from talking up his team’s chances of further success as the season unfolds.
“We have good players, we have a good mentality, and I think our day-by-day [work] is good enough to be competitive in a great competition,” he said. “We have to play against great teams, like today – Panathinaikos, for me, is one of the top two or three teams of the competition. But with our mentality we can be competitive against everybody.”
And on Friday night, nobody embodied that mentality more than Darius Thompson.
