Head-and-shoulders dominating the French team begins their World Basketball Championship with a heavy 95-65 loss to Canada. Vincent Collet’s men never found the right recipe against the Canadians, who present themselves as serious contenders for the title. The blues are already in front of the wall.
The French basketball team, a title contender, was brutally brought back to reality and suffered one of the heaviest losses in its recent competitive history against Canada (95-65) on Friday to clinch entry into the Global race. in Jakarta.
The Blues, 2019 bronze medalists and reigning Olympic runners-up, will have no right to make mistakes in Sunday’s second game against Latvia, who won their first meeting (against Lebanon). with the first two qualifying. They lost all chances of winning in a disastrous third quarter (8:25), ending up being led by twenty lengths (48:68) by the Canadians and their strong lineup of NBA players, but with no shared collective experience.
17 shot losses
Oklahoma City point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was slowly warming up (8 points at halftime, 27 at the end), was amused after the French’s many misses (17), which was one of their sweet sins in preparation.
Captain Kelly Olynyk (18 points) found solutions inside where Rudy Gobert (8 points, 9 rebounds) didn’t matter. Only Evan Fournier (21, including 19 points at break) and to a lesser extent Nando De Colo (12 points but 3 penalties) retired from play against the aggressive Canadian defense.
“We have no more Jokers”
“We suffered a really good defeat, there are no other words. We couldn’t really get into our system because of their defensive pressure. They pushed us back, whether on the outside line or the inside line. They pushed us back and we made it.” “I can’t get in. We don’t have a joker anymore,” reacted Evan Fournier on the BeIN Sports mic.
“That’s a nice slap in the face. Now we have no choice, we have to stick together and stop emphasizing ourselves. That’s imperative, because if we lose again, we’ll go home,” said his team-mate Nicolas Batum. The Blues are already in front of the wall and will meet Latvia on Sunday (3:30 p.m.).
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