PARIS — Chase Budinger never forgot how poorly he played in his first NBA game. He’ll have only fond memories of his Olympic debut.
The former Arizona professional basketball player and his partner, Miles Evans, beat host France in three sets on Monday to win their opening match of the Paris beach volleyball tournament.
“I really tried to use my basketball experience playing in front of big crowds to stay calm the whole time,” Budinger said after a 21-14, 21-11 victory. “But it definitely wasn’t like that inside.”
Budinger spent seven years in the NBA, mostly as a backup for the Rockets and Timberwolves, before turning to beach volleyball to pursue an Olympic dream. He still remembers his first NBA game: “I played really bad.”
“On the bus ride here, I was telling Miles about my first basketball game, how nervous I was and how the nerves really got to me,” Budinger said. “I was 0-of-2 (from 3-point range), I turned over two balls and one of my shots was a fly ball. So the nerves really affected my game.”
At the Eiffel Tower stadium on Monday, the nerves did not affect him, even against a French team that had won the last three matches of the international tour.
“It took me six years. It took me a long time to finally achieve this goal and be here competing at the Olympics,” Budinger said. “And there’s no better feeling.”
Budinger and Evans scored the first three points and never trailed in the first set. In the second, France took a 3-1 lead before the Americans won the next three points and wrapped up the match in just 32 minutes.
“It’s one of the best starts we could have imagined,” Evans said. “I had all these bad scenarios in my head going into this game. I’m very grateful that we were able to overcome that.”
Unlike his NBA debut against the Portland Trail Blazers in 2009, Budinger said, “I felt like I was able to score some points early on. It helped relieve some of that stress, some of that nervousness and allowed me to play more without it affecting me as much.”
In other notable beach action Monday, Americans Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth beat Tokyo silver medalist Taliqua Clancy of Australia and her new partner, Mariafe Artacho del Solar, in three sets to improve to 2-0 in Paris.
France swept aside Rio gold medallist Laura Ludwig of Germany and her new partner, Louisa Lippmann. Qatar, the men’s bronze medallist in Tokyo, beat top-ranked Sweden 2-1 to improve to 2-0 in the group stages.
