An all-French finals series against Paris Basketball awaits
Bourg keeping its eye on the prize after knocking off Besiktas
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It was party time inside Ekinox when the final buzzer sounded on Wednesday night, with Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse reaching its first European final in club history following an 89-63 Game 3 win over Besiktas Emlakjet Istanbul.
The final scoreline didn’t reflect how tight things were through the first 30 minutes – Bourg led by six points entering the fourth quarter – but an emphatic finish to the game set up an all-French matchup with Paris Basketball in the BKT EuroCup Finals.
Although the Bourg fans were having the time of their lives in the bleachers, and the likes of forward Maksim Salash and head coach Frederic Fauthoux were delighted with the result, there was a collective understanding afterward that a big challenge is coming up, starting next Tuesday night at Adidas Arena in the French capital.
“I think we had the perfect game in this semifinal, with great intensity, great energy,” Coach Fauthoux commented in the post-game press conference. “We controlled a lot of things in this game. I think we deserved to win today in this semifinal, but it’s not over. We are happy, but we’ll stay focused.”
It was a similar rhetoric from Salash, who finished as the player of the game with 19 points, more than any other player. Salash helped Spanish side San Pablo Burgos become the Basketball Champions League champion in 2020-21 and now has the chance to lift the EuroCup with Bourg in his debut season in the competition, yet he is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
“It’s my first season playing in the EuroCup and we’ve gone straight to the finals, so it feels amazing,” he noted in the flash interview courtside. “But we still have one more step to do, you know? Just the final [awaits]. We haven’t won yet, so we’ve got to work hard.”
One of the keys to Bourg’s success this season has been the way in which you never know which player will step up at any one time, which was exemplified by Salash’s big night.
Another bench player, Axel Julien, came up big with 11 points – the same total he had in Bourg’s 86-74 win in Game 1 – while back-to-back threes from Maxime Courby, percentage-wise the sixth-best three-point shooter in EuroCup history (47.6%), saw Bourg make it 72-60 and then 75-60 in the fourth as the French side pulled away for good.
There was even the chance for 40-year-old guard Earl Rowland to get some minutes late in the game, with the veteran netting his 400th two-point shot in the EuroCup, the fifth most all time.
There has been so much talk about Zaccharie Risacher, the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, but Bourg regularly finds ways to come out on top. All eyes are likely to be on Risacher heading into the EuroCup Finals, but Paris should be warned: Bourg is a whole lot more than just its 18-year-old prodigy.