At the end of the suspense, the French basketball team went to seek their qualification for the quarter-finals of the Euro basketball, Saturday, September 10, in Berlin, Germany. Olympic vice-champions in 2021, in Tokyo, the Blues beat Turkey after extra time by the smallest of the gaps, 87-86.
The French will have trembled until a few seconds from the end of the match. However, they had got off to a very good start. They even had a fourteen-point lead just under three minutes from halftime (38-24), but the Turks picked up the score before the break (43-35).
The third quarter was then catastrophic for the Blues who collapsed, conceding a 19-0, allowing the Turkish selection to take an eight-point lead (49-57).
While the chances of the French seemed tiny at twelve seconds of regulation time, Cedi Osman’s errors on the free throw line, then on a bad pass, allowed a well-placed Rudy Gobert to snatch the extension of a furious dunk (77-77).
RUDY GOBERT!!! #EuroBasket x #BringTheNoise ? https://t.co/XA74VljBO4 https://t.co/CBTWuYNBt6
Starting well in extra time, with a five-point lead one minute and thirty seconds from the end (87-82), the French once again saw Ergin Ataman’s players regain the upper hand and come back to one point. Until the Turks lost the ball to the French defense seconds from the final whistle, allowing the Blues to keep a small lead and win. In the quarter-finals, they will face either the Serbs or the Italians on Wednesday 14 September.