Yet announced as one of the favorites for the Basketball World Cup, the France team was humiliated, suffering one of its heaviest defeats in the competition. The Canadians won 95-65 this Friday, August 25 in Jakarta. The Blues, bronze medalists in 2019 and reigning Olympic vice-champions, will not have the right to make mistakes in their second match, Sunday against Latvia who won their first meeting (against Lebanon), if they want to advance to the second round for which the first two are qualified.
They lost all chance of victory in a catastrophic third quarter (8-25), at the end of which they were led by twenty lengths (48-68) by Canadians and their strong contingent of NBA players but without common collective experience.
Oklahoma City point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, gradually warming up (8 points at halftime, 27 in the end), enjoyed himself after the many stray balls from the French (17), already one of their cute sins during the preparation.
Captain Kelly Olynyk (18 points) found solutions inside, where Rudy Gobert (8 points, 9 rebounds) failed to weigh. Only Evan Fournier (21, including 19 points at the break) and to a lesser degree Nando de Colo (12 points, but 3 stray bullets) did well against the aggressive Canadian defense.
At the end of the meeting, Nicolas Batum expressed himself in the following terms: “We got into it, especially in the second half. In the first half, we are in the game. We forgot our principles, we stopped moving the ball, being together in defense when these are our strengths. It’s a good slap in the face. Now, we have no choice, we will have to stay together, stop projecting ourselves. It is imperative, because with another defeat, we go home. We have to stay together. We’ve already lost opening games before it ended well for us, so don’t overreact. But we must be concerned with the mistakes made today. We will play against a team in full confidence in two days (against Latvia, next opponent of the Blues, editor’s note), it is up to us to react and become who we are again.
