Cholet — Lyon-Villeurbanne: 85:97, LNB

Lyon-Villeurbanne beat Cholet 97 to 85 in the National Basketball League on Saturday evening. The visitors moved up to fourth in the table while the hosts dropped deeper into fifth. Both sides had played thirty games before this one and carried nearly identical records.

And here's the thing about the way this game unfolded — Cholet kept feeding the paint and the visitors found the right answers on the other end. The home side's three-point shooting never quite clicked, making eight from twenty-seven attempts. By then Lyon-Villeurbanne had already taken control with thirteen successful triples of their own.

The statistics tell the story without much debate. Both teams shared twenty-one assists and fourteen turnovers each, but the visitors won the battle at the free-throw line, converting twenty-four of thirty-five attempts compared to Cholet's twenty-one from twenty-eight. Rebounds were even at twenty-seven apiece, though the guests grabbed more on the offensive end. Personal fouls sat level at twenty-six for each side.

To be fair, we had called for the away win at sixty-five per cent confidence before kickoff. The scoreline confirms that reading — Lyon-Villeurbanne simply found the right adjustments when it mattered. They played the second half a man up in spirit if not in numbers, and Cholet found no answer.

The result leaves Lyon-Villeurbanne ten points behind the leaders with twenty wins from thirty games. Cholet sit eleven points adrift after nineteen victories, and the gap feels wider than the table suggests. A fourth straight win for the visitors, and another stumble for the hosts against the same opponent type.