victorious over the Americans, the Blues in basketball almost trivialize the feat

No outpouring of disproportionate joy, a group which quickly forms a circle in the center of the field, “check” and go to the shower. To see the reaction of the players of the French men’s basketball team, Sunday July 25 in Saitama, one would have thought that the Blues had just won a meeting of no importance, their fourth preparation match after three defeats. For Evan Fournier’s teammates, their victory was normal. However, the French had just overthrown the Americans and their squadron of NBA stars in their opening game of the Olympic tournament (83-76). Team USA’s first loss at the Olympics since 2004.

“To be honest, we were lucky”, breathes Evan Fournier. Reference to a bullet lost by the French that Guerschon Yabusele went to take by diving, to offer it to his artificer. Fournier’s shot, three points, tilted the French in the lead less than a minute from the end of the meeting. Luck, maybe, but determination, above all, and a constant desire. Even led by Kevin Durant’s teammates, the Blues have never deviated from their game plan: “Defend hard and force the Americans to play our hand”, exposes the trainer, Vincent Collet.

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Carried by an imperial Fournier in his scoring outfit (28 points), the teammates of Captain Nicolas Batum immediately attacked the Americans, who took up the challenge. Reinforced by many NBA stars – from Kevin Durant to Damian Lillard – after the failure of the last World Cup (an elimination in the quarterfinals by … France), the United States took the lead overall Match. Without managing to keep the Blues at bay. “We lacked consistency”, regretted the American coach, Gregg Popovich. From common experience, too, the team has only been completed by its last players in recent days, the end of the NBA season requires.

“The road is still long”

By force, Gregg Popovich will lose his Francophilia. Tony Parker’s former mentor in San Antonio seems to have found his pet peeve in the squad led by Vincent Collet. At the Rio Games, the Blues looked the American team in the eye (97-100 defeat), and at the 2019 World Cup, they eliminated them in the quarter-finals (89-79). So he refuses to speak of a “surprise” result, considering that this “Would be disrespectful to France. “We are talking about a very good team, with an excellent staff and NBA players and others evolving in Europe, who have been playing together for a long time”, he recalled. And who on Sunday wanted more than his flock.

Twenty-one years earlier, on the same Olympic stage, then in Sydney, the Blues had also faced the United States in group sentences. “We arrived by telling ourselves from the start that we were going to take 30 points, remembers Frédéric Weis, the pivot of the time, now a Eurosport consultant. And once on the pitch, we were surprised at their level ”. Finding the Americans in the final, the Blues had played eye to eye with the heirs of the Dream team, losing only ten points. “At the time, it was players that we watched on TV, today the French face them on a daily basis”, continues Mr. Weis. By taking, like the whole of international basketball, more and more place in the big league. Sacred for the third time best defender of the season in the NBA this year, the French Rudy Gobert has nothing to envy the behemoths of the American interior.

The greatest achievement of this French team is undoubtedly to have trivialized a victory against Team USA. For the Blues, they are not numerous, however: two fingers are enough to identify them; and never since NBA players incorporated the national team – with the “Dream team” of the 1992 Olympics – the United States had lost twice in a row to the same opponent. “I would be lying if I said it’s a match like any other, assumes the best scorer of the match, Evan Fournier. We beat the best team in the world, of course we are proud. But this is only a group match, there is still a long way to go. ” Disappointed to have won “only” bronze at the last World Cup, Rudy Gobert and his partners are aiming for another metal.

Before that, and to hope to meet again the Americans at the end of the competition, they will have to deal with the rest of the group, starting with the surprising Czech Republic on Wednesday. “I had warned my players during the week, even if we win against the Americans, the most important meeting will be the next match”, smiles Vincent Collet.