Paris Basketball Levels Betclic Elite Semifinals at 1-1 with Dominant 100-77 Win Over Cholet
Pais Basketball comes roaring back in game 2 ties series 1-1 Photo Credit: parisbasketball
Two days earlier, Cholet had pulled off the kind of heist that makes you recalibrate. A team that had just finished 13th in the Betclic ELITE regular season walked into the Porte de La Chapelle Arena and stole a 90-89 thriller—the kind of moral victory that franchise dreams are built on. Gérald Ayayi had been magnificent down the stretch, and for 48 hours, Cholet had every right to believe they could build something.
On Wednesday night, Paris Basketball reminded everyone why that dream was merely a reprieve, not a reproof.
The regular-season leaders obliterated Cholet 100-77 in a performance so thorough it raised the question: was Game 1 an upset, or was it just noise? By the fourth quarter, when the score was already out of reach, it felt very much like the latter.
The American Answer
What’s instructive is how Paris won. They leaned heavily on their American wing rotation, three players who each bring a different tactical flavor to the Paris toolkit: Jared Rhoden, the crafty two-way scorer from Seton Hall; Daulton Hommes, the rangy forward from Point Loma Nazarene who has thrived in Europe despite barely sniffing NBA prominence; and Lamar Stevens, the physical Penn State product who has become a reliable playoff performer across two continents.
Rhoden finished with 15 points and 3 rebounds in 22 minutes of play, controlling his offensive load and hitting timely shots when Cholet was scrambling to close gaps. Hommes, typically the role-player glue guy, added an identical 15 points alongside 3 rebounds and 3 assists—the kind of complementary line that suggests depth is functioning. Stevens chipped in 13 points in just under 20 minutes, giving Paris multiple offensive weapons that Cholet’s perimeter defense simply couldn’t manage.
They weren’t dominant individually. That wasn’t the point. What mattered was the combination—three different guys capable of putting the ball in the basket from anywhere on the floor, all playing with the kind of controlled rhythm that comes from a team that knows it’s better and is content to prove it methodically rather than spectacularly.
The Story Buried in the Quarters
The quarter-by-quarter splits tell the real story. After Cholet’s hot start—a 30-20 first quarter that suggested they might keep the chaos alive—Paris ground them into submission. Twenty-five to 20 in the second. Thirty-two to 18 in the third. Twenty-three to 9 in the fourth, when Cholet had already checked out mentally.
This was a masterclass in controlled basketball, the kind Paris’s regular-season dominance had promised. They weren’t taking crazy threes or trying to outscore opponents in a track meet. They were playing to their personnel, running through Nadir Hifi—their catalyst who posted 19 points and 5 assists in just over 21 minutes—and letting the American wings feast on open looks and secondary actions.
For Cholet, it was the basketball equivalent of waking up from a dream. Ayayi was excellent again with 17 points, but he had virtually no help. Chibuzo Agbo managed 11, Nathan De Sousa 10, but the rest of their roster evaporated. That’s what happens when you meet a team that simply has more talent and decides to apply it all at once.
What’s Next
The series now pivots to Cholet, where Games 3 and 4 will be played. Home-court advantage is no trivial matter in these playoffs, and Cholet proved in Game 1 that their arena is a genuine asset—the kind of place where ugly basketball becomes functional basketball. Paris, armed with newfound confidence and the certainty that they can impose their will when required, will face a different test: can you win on the road in a hostile environment against a team that’s already shown they belong?
The Betclic ELITE semifinals are finely balanced at 1-1. One team has already bent but hasn’t broken. The other is searching for an identity beyond home-court heroics. The next chapter will tell us everything.
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