Gran Canaria had too much firepower for Paris

Gran Canaria enjoyed its highest point tally of the EuroCup season in a 118-99 home win over Paris Basketball and in what was a vintage performance worthy of the Group B leader. It was lights out for the visitors in the opening two quarters as the home side romped into a 68-49 lead on the back of nailing 10 three-pointers from 20 attempts in the first half, 5 of them coming from David Mutaf who lit up the crowd with four successive shots from downtown that hit the bottom of the net.
Gran Canaria finished on 13-of-25 shooting from three-point range and dished out a staggering total of 31 team assists, which highlighted selfless teamwork. Paris had less than half as many assists (15).
The visiting team’s head coach, Will Weaver, acknowledged his men lost to a superior rival but stressed he would look forward to another clash in the knockout stages if these two sides were pitted against each other.
"They’re an exceptionally good team, one of the best in Europe," Weaver told the post-game press conference. "Very well coached, they are deep and they shot the ball extremely well tonight. My only disappointment is that we didn’t have a healthy enough team to compete with these guys in either game we played. In the first game we were missing three players and tonight we were missing five. Maybe there will be an opportunity for these two teams to meet again and if there is, I’ll look forward to it."
Paris sank 11 three-point shots from 29 attempts and performed reasonably well in most other departments too, shooting 24 of 44 from inside the arc (Gran Canaria was 27 of 43), with the two teams tied on 35 rebounds each. But the visitors also committed 15 turnovers to Gran Canaria’s 11 and the hosts ruthlessly punished the losses of possession, having nailed a barrage of long-range shots from a quick transition of the ball.
The home team’s head coach Jaka Lakovic was humble in victory: "We are happy with the win. We respect [Paris] and we entered the game very strongly and with a great mentality. This translated into having a good game. Paris is a good team, they missed three very important players and their presence would have made the game different," he said.