Anytime the world’s best champions play against each other, it’s a matchup never to be missed. The France men’s basketball team hosted Germany in the Paris Olympics, with each team coming in undefeated. defending silver medalists France took on the current FIBA world champion Germany in the final Group B match.
It was a game of highs and lows with both teams shining and showing their superstars. Germany’s Franz Wagner had the game of his life and was almost unstoppable. He couldn’t miss. No matter how hard things got, France was going to show they were not going to go down quietly and were never going to give up. How did this game unfold?
France’s NBA Star Olympic Team
France has some familiar NBA names on their Olympics roster such as Nicolas Batum of the Clippers, Rudy Gobert of the Timberwolves, and of course, Victor Wembanyama from the Spurs. None of them played much together before this. The German team featured brothers Mo Wagner and Franz Wagner from the Magic. Two other players come together from the Nets Dennis Schroder and Daniel Theis of the Pelicans now all playing in Olympic Basketball.
German Control From The Start
With so much NBA talent, we saw some fantastic basketball. One of those moments came at the end of the first quarter as Germany’s Isaac Bonga hit a three-pointer at the buzzer. Going into the second quarter, it was all Germany as they held a 10-point lead for a time. In the second quarter, France ran into the almost impenetrable German defense. After a German breakaway, France fouled, giving Germany two shots from the charity stripe and an 11-point lead. With a couple of 3-pointers from Shroder, Germany pushed the lead over France to 21. The half-time score was 27-48.
After the half, France came out with a massive slam from Mathias Lessort, adding a free throw to start the third. Partway through the third, both teams tightened their defense and it appeared France had been so concerned with Germany on the inside but wasn’t ready for how lethal they were from beyond the arc. Germany extended their lead to twenty-four, but Lessort still fought to fire up his team with key rebounds and pressure under the hoop.
Germany Got Hot From Outside
With two minutes left in the third, France appeared to have a run going, but Germany stopped that quickly. France missed a lot of free throws. One highlight of the quarter was Franz Wagner throwing the ball down hard while being surrounded by French defenders. He made it look easy. At the end of the third, the score was 69-46 with Germany leading. The fourth started out slow, but a quick slam by France, a block by Gobert, and then a fast three-pointer told Germany that France wasn’t going down without a fight.
The Germany lead was cut down to 18 with eight and a half minutes left in the game. France looked like they were back in the game, but Germany kept the threes coming, quieting down the crowd. It was a battle for answering threes, but Germany controlled the time. When it was all said and done, the Germans won handily against the Frenchmen 85-71.
Germany advances to the quarterfinals undefeated in the Paris Olympics. France also advances but won’t have the easiest position matchup. They will face Canada, another team with a lot of NBA players. Some of whom include Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Andrew Nembhard, and Dillon Brooks. If France doesn’t make more of their free throws and can’t stop their opponents from knocking down threes, their basketball team’s run at the Olympics might be short.
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