Despite Paris’s strong three-point shooting, with a third of their 15 successful shots coming from Yakuba Ouattara, and their dominant interior presence in the paint with Enzo Shahrvin (15 points) and Mohamed Faye (12 points) outrebounding the Choletais significantly, Cholet managed to stage a comeback. After trailing by a substantial margin of 47-67 in the 26th minute, CB narrowed the deficit to just 4 points in the crucial final minutes before ultimately falling short.
Here are the comments from two key players, as reported by Ouest France:
Nathan De Sousa (Cholet Basket):
“We had a very poor start to the game, which is unacceptable against a EuroLeague team. We need to be more consistent; conceding 32 points in the first quarter is far too many. We must begin better. They came at us hard, and we made defensive errors. They also grabbed far too many offensive rebounds. However, it’s up to us to stay focused because there’s a Game 4 on Tuesday. We have to go and secure a Game 5 in Paris. We need to work a bit harder to improve our three-point shooting; that’s the truth. We must hold onto what we did to come back, driven by a noisy Meilleraie crowd: never give up, that’s been our DNA since the start of the season. We see that this is winnable; we can play against this team on equal footing.”
Yakuba Ouattara (Paris Basketball):
“We did a good job. In the first two games, Cholet was the team that struck the first blow, so to speak. This time, we wanted to impose our rhythm from the outset. Honestly, we did a really good job without panicking (when they came back). The entire team stayed focused and united, finding solutions at the right moments. We are warned; Cholet is a very good team with a huge heart that never gives up. Furthermore, they are supported by their crowd. We know that the next game will be completely different. Tonight, offensive rebounds were incredibly beneficial for us.”
