Sorry, brothers, for being slapped in the face.
In the Olympic men's basketball 1/4 finals, the France men's basketball team defeated the Canada men's basketball team 82-73 and advanced to the semifinals.
Before the start of this game, we said that this France men's basketball team is not very good, last year's World Cup group did not qualify, the Olympic warm-up match was 2-4, and the group advantage to advance to the quarterfinals won Brazil and Japan, including against Japan, the France men's basketball team also played overtime, and the foul that could go into overtime was also full of controversy.
Before the start of the knockout round, the France men's basketball team had internal conflicts, first Fournier and the head coach openly disagreed on tactics, and then the head coach criticized Wembanyama for playing too much 1v2, combined with this year's France men's basketball outside line, Canada men's basketball and Alexander, how to think, Canada men's basketball is the more dominant side.
As a result, he was completely slapped in the face.
The France men's basketball team played the Canada men's basketball team 19-5 at the beginning, leading by 13 points at 23-10 at the end of the first quarter, and then the point difference continued to widen, until the beginning of the third quarter, the France men's basketball team had a 48-29 lead of 19 points, which was also the largest point difference in the game;
Since then, the Canada men's basketball team has gradually begun to close the gap, but every time the Canada men's basketball team closes the score, the France men's basketball team always has someone to stand up and respond, and finally France maintained the lead until the whistle blew and Canada was out.
Let's talk about the France men's basketball team first, which is very unexpected.
Generally, when it comes to this France men's basketball team, Wembanyama and Gobert immediately come to mind, but France's use of the twin towers in this game is completely different from the warm-up game and the group stage.
Probably because they had to face Canada, which had a comprehensive advantage on the outside, France directly abandoned Gobert, who played less than 4 minutes off the bench in the whole game, did not score a point, and only grabbed 1 rebound.
Wembanya still has a lot of plays, but he doesn't have the ball in the previous games, only 2 of 10 in the whole game, and 0 of 6 three-pointers, only 7 points, but he grabbed 11 rebounds, and sent 5 assists and 3 steals, and did a lot of dirty work;
Another absolute main force of the France men's basketball team, Batum played a team-high 34 minutes in this game, but only 1 shot, and has not scored, also did not score a point, only 4 rebounds and 3 assists.
Today's France men's basketball team belongs to non-NBA players:
- Jabb Sele, 6-of-9 from the field, 2-of-4 from three-point range, 22 points and 5 rebounds
- Cordinye, 6-of-10 from the field, 4-of-5 from three-point range, 20 points and three rebounds
- Matthias Solet, 2-of-3 from the field, 9-of-14 from the free-throw line, 13 points and five rebounds
The France men's basketball team's strategy tonight is simple and rough, that is, aiming at Canada's lack of interior and body disadvantage, crazy misplacement and hard eating, so you will see that Jabsele and Solet alone are 17 of 23 on the free throw line, as a comparison, the Canada men's basketball team is only 18 of 25.
and, a key figure in the France men's basketball team, Fournier.
Previously, we said that Fournier played poorly in the group stage, averaging only 10.3 points per game in three games, shooting 32.1%, and in this game, Fournier did not play well in the first three quarters, shooting 1 of 4 in total, and only scored 3 points.
But in the final half of the fourth quarter, Fournier turned on the "France Jordan" mode, and one person scored 12 points, including a three-point shot to stop bleeding when he was chased to only 5 points, a throw to widen the difference, a half-court fairy three-point shot that was running out of time, and 4 free throws were also not conceded.
Fournier came off the bench for 24 minutes, shooting 4-of-8 from the field, 3-of-6 from three-point range and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line to finish with 15 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists, and there is no doubt that it was his best game so far in this year's Olympics.
With Fournier playing like this, with one of the twin towers willing to sit on the bench and the other to do the dirty work, and the role players broke out en masse, it seemed less surprising that the France men's basketball team won.
Speaking of the Canada men's basketball team, Alexander really tried his best.
In the whole game, Alexander only rested for 3 minutes, shot 9 of 19, 1 of 4 three-pointers, and 8 of 11 free throws, and got 27 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, of which in the second and third quarters, Alexander scored 20 points, which can be said to be one person supporting the team.
In addition, Barrett did not play badly, 6 of 10 from the field, 2 of 4 from three-point range, 2 of 3 from the free throw line, and got 16 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists, the disadvantage is that he came too late, scoring 10 points in a single quarter in the fourth quarter and only 6 points in the first three quarters.
Alexander and Barrett are the two sharp knives of the Canada men's basketball team, the two previously in the group stage, Barrett averaged 21.0 points per game and scored fourth, and Alexander averaged 19.0 points per game and scored eighth.
Canada is out, and these two are not to blame, but they are others, such as Dillon and Murray, who can be called Crouching Dragons and Phoenix Chicks.
Dillon played well in the group stage before, averaging 14.3 points per game, and the shooting rate reached "50+60+90", but in this game, he shot 1 of 9 in total, and only scored 2 points, which did not provide firepower at all.
Murray was miserable, he had a place in the group stage before, averaging only 5.7 points per game, shooting rate of 33.3%, and 1 of 10 three-point shots, he continued the slump in this game, a total of 3 of 13, 1 of 4 three-pointers, and only scored 7 points.
Of course, it was not only these two who played badly in Canada, Nembhard, who had played amazingly, played 15 minutes in this game, did not shoot a goal, did not score a point, and their interior line was a mess, completely suppressed by several strong forwards in France - the Canada men's basketball team must have thought at some point if Zac Idy was there.
It should be said that the whistle in this game also has a certain bias, the France men's basketball team made 25 free throws in the half, and the full-court free throws were 42-25, which was not a small controversy - the host still has an advantage, but the whistle can be blown or not blown.
Finally, back to the France men's basketball team.
Their next opponent will be the Germany men's basketball team, which has met twice in the past month, once in the warm-up game, when Wembanyama was absent, France lost 65-70 to Germany, and the other came in the final group game a few days ago, when France lost 74-85 to Germany, trailing by as many as 24 points at all.
In the semifinals, I am still optimistic about the Germany men's basketball team, which has won 13 consecutive international competitions since last year's World Cup, and unlike the Canada men's basketball team with internal and external imbalances, the Germany men's basketball team has Wagner on the inside and Schroeder on the outside, which is also the best Germany men's basketball team in history, France men's basketball, is there still a chance to hit the face?