By Eurohoops team/ [email protected]
What a night for the newcomers Paris Basketball. Going to Lithuania on 7Bet-Lietkabelis’s home court where they lost only two times this season and getting a win 98-97. The French team battled till the end and manage to get one of the biggest surprise victories of the season as they now proceed to the quarterfinals of 7Days EuroCup.
Juhann Begarin led the winners with 22 points. Tyrone Wallace posted a double-double of 19 and 10 assists. Aamir Sims contributed 16 points, including 5-for-6 free-throw shooting in the final 15 seconds. Gauthier Denis added 11 points while Ismael Kamagate had 10 and 9 rebounds for Paris. Jamel Morris led Lietkabelis with 23 points. Gyorgy Goloman added 22 and 7 rebounds, while Kristian Kullamae had 20 points, Zeljko Sakic 11 and Vytenis Lipkevicius 10.
A pair of 10-8 teams come into their one-and-done EuroCup Eighthfinals clash with different momentums. 7Bet-Lietkabelis Panevezys, the fourth-placed team in Group A, has won six of its last eight games to clinch home-court advantage in this phase, while competition newcomer Paris Basketball has been on the losing end in four of its last six regular-season contests. But when it mattered the most, Paris got the job done.
In a back-and-forth game that lasted more than 37 minutes, it all came down to the last 180 seconds when Zeljko Sakic tied the game up 87-87. The French side had a three-point lead after a big bucket from beyond the arc from Denis Gauthier, but Gyorgy Goloman responded quickly to cut the lead before the decisive three-point shot by Tyrone Wallace. After missing five shots from three-point range, he gave his team a big 93-89 lead with just 43 seconds left on the game clock that was enough to secure the W.
Paris became the fifth French League team to reach the EuroCup Quarterfinals, after LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne, AS Monaco, Strasbourg and Metropolitans 92. Lietkabelis lost in the eighthfinals for the second consecutive campaign, finishing the 2022-23 EuroCup season with a 10-9 record.