Nicolas Batum (captain of the French basketball team, after the 80-69 victory against Montenegro): “More adversity than against Tunisia? It is a very good thing. It is in difficulty and adversity that we will grow. We had a big week of work. We were a bit on our knees today (Wednesday), with heavy legs after a big trip and a five-hour bus ride between Pau and Montpellier yesterday (Tuesday). They played very well. It’s a team that plays hard. They are in place, they have been training for a while. We knew what we were going to have in front of us. We had difficulties, runs, we let them come back. We weren’t good at rebounds. We sometimes defend very well but we do not finish the actions. It will have to be corrected very quickly. Evan Fournier? We weren’t worried. With Nando (De Colo), we try to take the pressure off of creating the game. Rudy Gobert’s three-pointer? Amazing ! It shows the confidence he has when he plays with us. It’s very easy to play with him, you just have to trust him and know how to use him.” (in mixed zone)
Vincent Collet (France national team coach): “Evan Fournier? The positive point is all of what we produced in attack, with very average success but with around thirty open shots, and in any case many more open shots than contested shots. That’s what we’re looking for offensively right now. Evan’s performance is one of them, but it’s more than that. Already, I was not particularly worried about the first match but above all, what matters to us is that the team progresses, not that Pierre, Paul or Jacques progresses. What’s important right now is the team, until we go to Japan. There, it will be time, in final preparation, to worry about whether one or the other is a little worse than expected, but not after a week of preparation. (…) In the negatives, there was real weakness on the rebound. It’s a matter of focus and individual responsibility. We don’t do the delay screens enough, and in particular our outside players. I don’t think Montenegro is the best team in the world in offensive rebounds…
I’m quite satisfied that we were able to keep an identical framework in our game (compared to Sunday). Inevitably with less ease because opposite, there was more aggressiveness, roughness and level. There were relapses, where we played too direct. But we still knocked the ball down a lot and created a lot of open shot situations. It’s very positive. On the defensive side, there is the rebound, but also the inside game in the first period with a lot of uncontrolled assists. We came to take two that were not at all requested or prepared, inspirations that cost us dearly against good passers. It was much better in the second half. In the negative things, we were also too permissive on one against one, especially when we went into the zone. But we only conceded 69 points, we made 26 deflections (touching the ball in defense). Above 20 is ok. The Montenegrins only shot 38%. There was still an aggressiveness, like Batum at the start of the match on Ivanovic, an interesting pressure on the ball, even you have to do it over time. (in press conference)
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