One dribble, two dribbles. Going to the left, going to the right. A quick stop on a dime and a pull-up shot. Just like in his childhood, Kevin Punter did it again.
| Player of the Game | |
|
EFF
17
|
| Kevin Punter | |
| Points | 18 |
| Accuracy | 8-13 |
| Rebounds | 3 |
| Assists | 0 |
This time his signature shot broke the hearts of Joventut Badalona fans in the 7DAYS EuroCup thriller at Aleksandar Nikolic Hall.
Partizan's leader scored the last six points of his team, including a game-winner with 4.2 seconds left, to keep Partizan unbeaten 3-0.
Joel Parra, Ante Tomic, and Derek Willis did their best, but it still wasn't enough to shut down this scoring machine in neither of three last-minute possessions.
Punter poured in 18 points on 8-for-13 shooting to get Partizan through Joventut 68-67.
There's not much you can do against Punter when he's on fire, and he's setting up his signature shot. Punter calls it unguardable, and it starts from a quick childhood story.
Punter had a knack for scoring at a young age. But he was very skinny growing up, so he always had to figure out different ways to score. Kevin was a big basketball lover, so he watched the film, studied different ways, and nailed it.
To this day, he remembers one summer playing for the AAU basketball team, where his coach noticed one interesting thing.
"I was dribbling more three-four times, and I was finding myself in trouble, either turning the ball over or doing something stupid. I started to notice that every time I dribble under three times and just shoot, I would score like a pull-up. That's how I started to learn how to shoot a pull-up," Punter told on the Urbonus podcast.
He was also inspired by his dad, who explained that this move might make him unguardable.
"My dad used always to tell me nobody could guard a pull-up," Punter smiled. "Because everybody wants to shoot threes and always get to the basket. If you stop on a dime, you're not going to know when the person will shoot. And that's the hardest thing to guard."
"So as a little kid, I used just to go really hard, two dribbles, one dribble, just stop and shoot, whether I miss or not. I've done that for years, and I started to master it," he added.
"My dad always used just to say the pull-up jumper, the pull-up jumper... And then just kind of practicing, just messing around, I kept doing it over and over. I started to learn that no one could really stop that. If you really go full speed and stop, you can't stop it," Punter told. "So that's kind of how I developed that up until now."
I dare you to stop him.
Watch the entire conversation with Kevin Punter on the Urbonus podcast:
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