On the road in the French capital, Besiktas hounded the EuroCup's top-ranked attack.
Bestiktas's win over Paris was a tale of defense over offense
Article
3 Mins read
The old adage in sports goes: offense wins games but defense wins championships. Besiktas Emlakjet Istanbul put its stingy defense on display in shutting down the No. 1 offense in the BKT EuroCup and defeating Paris Basketball.
Besiktas fought back from 12 points down and limited the vaunted Paris attack to 23 second-half points in a 63-68 victory, which was also the French side’s first loss.
Paris came into the game averaging a league-high 101.1 points and a top-ranked performance index rating of 120.7. Coach Tuomas Iisalo’s team had topped the century mark five times in seven games. Its season low in scoring was 81 points against Umana Reyer Venice.
Unfortunately for Paris, Besiktas entered the game with a pretty strong defense, conceding only 73.9 points per game - the fourth-fewest in the competition.
“When you keep this team to (63) points at home - the best offensive team which is averaging more than 100 points per game - this is really something. This is a team win. Congratulations to my players They really made a big sacrifice for this team win,” said Besiktas head coach Dusan Alimpijevic.
Game Videos
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Ward throws it down! Motorola Magic Moment
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Hayes alley-oop dunk off another Shorts assist! Motorola Magic Moment
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The Shorts-Hayes combo works again! Motorola Magic Moment
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Hifi stuns the crowd! Motorola Magic Moment
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Allman dunks on the fly! Magic Moment
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Terry bends the rim! Magic Moment
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Paris managed a PIR of just 68 while converting only 34.3% on two-pointers - drastically lower than its average shooting of 58.7% coming into the game. Paris also registered just 7 assists - 13.9 fewer than its average - and committed 13 turnovers - 3.7 more than its league fewest 9.3 entering the game.
The result leaves Paris at 7-1 and Besiktas with a 6-2 record in an extremely difficult Group A. That fact was not lost on Alimpijevic.
“Our group is very difficult and very tough. We have a lot of candidates in the group to win the EuroCup without disrespecting the other group,” the coach said. “In our group, every win is so important.”
The win was also very important for Besiktas as the team was coming off an 80-83 home loss to London Lions last week.
“This is something to be very proud about. But this just shows the work we put in this week, and a lot of concentration,” said Matt Mitchell, who scored a team-high 16 points for Besiktas.
“Coming back off that loss to London last week - trying to show something for that. Just knowing that we can compete with the best of these teams in this league. And we feel we are one of the best teams in this league. We came out here and showed that.”
With one of the best defenses in the league.