High School

Son of two-time NBA champion scores 29, leads De La Salle to big EBAL victory

Davit Pachulia drills 6 three-pointers as Spartans dominate down low in back-and-forth game against Dougherty Valley

Mitch Stephens

De La Salle junior Davit Pachulia had career high 29 points in a 75-66 East Bay Athletic League home win over Dougherty Valley on Tuesday night. Pachulia, son of former NBA forward Zaza Pachulia, made six 3-pointers en route to his career night.
De La Salle junior Davit Pachulia had career high 29 points in a 75-66 East Bay Athletic League home win over Dougherty Valley on Tuesday night. Pachulia, son of former NBA forward Zaza Pachulia, made six 3-pointers en route to his career night. / Photo courtesy of De La Salle athletics

Zaza Puchulia won back-to-back NBA titles as a member of the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018.

He might have felt even more pride Tuesday night watching his oldest son Davit score a career high 29 points, leading host De La Salle to a 75-66 East Bay Athletic League win over a scrappy Dougherty Valley team.

The younger Pachulia, a 6-foot-4 junior forward, drilled six three-pointers and put the game away during a point fourth-quarter onslaught with back-to-back three-pointers, one of the old-fashioned variety, as the Spartans improved to 16-2 and 2-0 in EBAL play.

Zaza Puchulia was in the stands and after the game rubbed his son's head in appreciation of a career night, which came just a week after Davit made a game-winning heavy-contested layup in a 44-42 win over Oakland. Pachulia had a game-high 16 points in that game.

On Tuesday, he had a lot of help, particularly down low as 6-7 forwards Olanre Owoborode (18 points, nine rebounds) and Mariano Lopez-Arden (16 points, 17 rebounds) were dominante against the much smaller Wildcats, who got 29 points off the bench by Rashod Cotton. While Dougherty Valley drilled nine three-pointers, the Spartans owned the rebound war with a 40-21 edge.

Dougherty Valley dropped to 13-6 and 1-1.

Puchulia came out on fire from the get-go, scoring 11 of his team's first 13 points, leading the Spartans to leads of 11-0 and 24-13.

But Dougherty Valley forced 10 first-half turnovers to take leads of 30-28 and 51-49 after the second and third quarters. That's when the Spartans took command, gettin g eight points from Lopez-Arden, four of those coming on back-to-back lob passes from Ibrahim Monawar, the second of which he dunked hom, eight from Pachulia and five by Austin See.

Davit's younger brother Saba is a sophomore playing at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, a public school about four miles from De La Salle, a private school which is constantly in the mix for league, section, regional and state championships.

Zaza, who played for seven teams in his 16-year NBA career, attends all the games he can when the boys don't play on the same night. He's a basketball operations consulatant for the Warriors.

"You can tell he wants the best for us," Davit told the Bay Area News Group last season when Davit was a reserve. "Always providing us the best type of food, best type of weight training, all of that."

Zaza told the newspaper: "They love it. They love to work hard. My wife and I, we enjoy it. That's the best thing, it gives us so much joy seeing them play. Nothing better."

It certainly couldn't have got much better on Tuesday for their oldest son.

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Mitch Stephens
MITCH STEPHENS

Mitch Stephens is a senior editor at SBLive Sports for California, a state he's covered high school sports since 1984. He won multiple CNPA and CPSWA writing awards with the Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Chronicle and MaxPreps.com before joining the SBLive staff in 2022. He's covered the beat nationally since 2007, profiling such athletes as Derrick Henry, Paige Bueckers, Patrick Mahomes, Sabrina Ionescu, Jayson Tatum, Chiney Ogwumike, Jeremy Lin and Najee Harris as preps. You can reach him at mitch@scorebooklive.com.

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