France will play for a gold medal in men's basketball at the 2024 Paris Olympics after beating Germany 73-69 on Thursday in the semifinals. It was a hard-fought win after Germany overcame a 13-point deficit and staged a comeback in the closing minutes of the game, but France came out on top. This marks the first time since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that the host country will advance to the gold-medal match in men's basketball.
It's been an electrifying 48 hours for the French basketball team, which upset Canada in the quarterfinals, and now beat Germany, a team it got blown out by in the group stage of this tournament. But after a rough showing in group play, which also included a scare against Japan, France is back in the gold-medal match after reaching the same point at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The French will await the winner of the USA-Serbia match, and if Team USA wins, it will be a rematch of the championship game from three years ago. But before we get ahead of ourselves, here are some takeaways from France's exciting win over defending FIBA World Champions Germany.
Wembanyama's modest stat line doesn't do him justice
The boxscore won't show just how important Victor Wembanyama was to France on Thursday. He finished with 11 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks, so you might think he had an average game. But he had a much bigger impact on the game compared to what his stats would suggest. He struggled with efficiency in scoring once again, going 4 of 17 from the floor, but what he lacked in scoring, he made up for in other areas of the game. He fed his teammates in the right spots, grabbed rebounds and asserted his dominance around the rim by swatting at anything that came near him.
The most impressive block of the day came in the fourth quarter when France led by 10 points. Germany tried to go on a run, and Dennis Schroder was left wide open on the wing for a 3-pointer. In most circumstances, he would've gotten that shot off cleanly, no problem, but not when you're playing against Wemby. The 7-foot-4 French phenom was deep in the paint and then suddenly took two massive steps to close on Schroder and block the shot. This wasn't like a "Oh, he grazed the ball, but it still made it to the rim." No, he got most of his fingers on the ball as it was already traveling mid-air to stop the ball in its tracks. As a result, France got the ball, pushed it in transition and it led to a Frank Ntilikina 3-pointer on the other end.
He blocked Schroder another time as he -- not so wisely -- tried to drive toward the rim as Wemby loomed under the basket. Any time Wembanyama was in the game, it deterred Germany from driving towards the rim, which took away a big piece of Germany's game. Entering that matchup against France, Germany had averaged 29 points in the paint through the tournament, but on Thursday, they were limited to just 28 points. It was no doubt because of Wembanyama's presence, and a change in the lineup to allow him more room to roam about in the paint to make a difference.
After the game, Wembanyama was so overcome with emotion that he started to cry. You can tell how much passion he plays with while wearing France's jersey, and those emotions came to a head as the buzzer sounded.
"It's a chance to write history," Wembanyama said about the prospect of playing for a gold medal. "The fans made it hard for me not to cry."
France has a chance to pull off the unthinkable if it matches up against Team USA in the gold-medal rematch. And if it could pull off the upset, it would be the first time in Olympics history that France's men's basketball team has won a gold medal.
Gobert comes off the bench again
There were some mixed signals after France's quarterfinals win against Canada after Rudy Gobert didn't start, then proceeded to play just three minutes of that game. Gobert said it was because he injured his finger during practice. But France coach Vincent Collet said that wasn't the sole reason why he was limited in using the four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Collet said excluding Gobert from the starting unit was based on matchups. Because Canada had a smaller, more athletic rotation, he opted to not start Gobert, but he said that the 7-footer would play in the semifinals against Germany.
However, Gobert did not start again vs. Germany, and he only mustered up five minutes of action as Collet leaned on the likes of reserve center Mathias Lessort off the bench. Lessort finished with 10 points and four rebounds. The inclusion of Guerschon Yabusele and Isaia Cordinier in the starting lineup proved fruitful again as they led the way in scoring for France. While Gobert may be dealing with a finger injury, it's obvious that Collet is seeing this as a matchup problem and would rather go with a smaller, more physical bunch against opposing teams.
But still, the fact that Gobert can't get even just 10 minutes off the bench is kind of insane. This is one of the best defensive players in the NBA, and in each of the last two games, he's essentially been a benchwarmer, only subbing in to grab rebounds off of free throws. If France ends up playing Team USA, you have to think he gets back in the rotation or maybe even the starting lineup, given all the size the Americans and Serbs possess. They'll need him to defend the likes of Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic, even if it means giving up some scoring with either Yabusele or Cordinier.
Role players shine once more
MVP chants echoed inside Bercy Arena in Paris, but they weren't for Wembanyama, Gobert, Nicolas Batum or Evan Fournier -- a quadrant of the most well-known NBA talent on the French roster. No, they were for Yabusele, who, despite being the 16th overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, only managed 74 games in the NBA. He may not have worked out in the NBA, but for France, he's the unsung hero. He once again led his team in scoring, finishing with 17 points, seven rebounds and two assists. Each time he stepped to the free-throw line, he was serenaded with MVP chants, a wild circumstance considering just two games ago, he was coming off the bench for France.
But the decision to put him in the starting lineup, as well as Cordinier, proved to be the injection of offensive scoring needed for this French team. Cordinier had 16 points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals as he is proving to be the ideal guard for France in this tournament alongside Ntilikina in the backcourt. He matched up well with Canada's athletic guards and outplayed Germany's Dennis Schroder (18 points) in the semifinals, too. No one would've expected that France would get to the gold-medal game on the strength of its role players, but those guys are the precise reason why the host country has advanced this far.