The summer of 2021 will forever be etched in our fan memories. Why ? Because the flirtation between July and August will have offered us almost at the same time the NBA Finals, the Free Agency, the Olympic Games, the Draft and the Summer League. Are you serious? Oh yeah. The scars of this crazy period are still there, a year later, so much so that we decided, over a few days, to remind you of some of these still present memories. 2021 intravenously. Today ? We are celebrating the anniversary of the victory of the Blues against Team USA, one more, and this one has an Olympic flavor.
The historic victory at the 2019 World Cup in China had opened the floodgates, so the French team said to themselves “let’s go cheerfully”. Cheerfully but like warriors, and if the summer of 2021 was absolutely boiling hot in many ways, this July 25 will remain as a refreshing memory.
Group stage of the Tokyo Games, we are playing the 2020 Olympic Games in 2021 for health reasons that you know all too well. France inherited, among others, Team USA in its group, and opposite Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Bam Adebayo and Jayson Tatum in particular lead a group that has nothing to do with the D team usually offered. Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday have just gotten off the plane jetlagged and jetbagged, Devin Booker too but without the ring, and whatever happens this match is a terrible shock, with on one side the memory of the blue victory two years later early, and on the other an Olympic medal in the bezel and therefore a match that will serve as a life-size rehearsal.
First information? When Bam Adebayo and Draymond Green are defending, it’s better to have a defibrillator nearby. Second info? Kevin Durant is the best striker on the planet and the France of basketball will sadly realize it two weeks later, but that’s another story. You will have understood that the cainris did not come to play the rug, but the good news is that the inferiority complex no longer exists against these guys. Race results? We are witnessing a real basketball game, one of the most balanced, with a bleeding Evan Fournier at the start of the match and a millimeter Nando De Colo in the second half. Rudy Gobert takes a few draughts in defense but does the job on the offensive rebound, Thomas Heurtel recovered his shorts from the Cozette, the Fall / Poirier duo is solid off the bench, and the role players Guerschon Yabusele and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot explain to us the reason for their presence in Tokyo, all led by Nicolas Batum and his magician’s wand, he who knows his opponents by heart and the kind of solidity what you have to show to get out of these people. At the end of the game the sacrifices of Guerschon Yabusele coupled with the science of the monitor De Colo and the grinta of Vavane (28 points in the end) will be so many problems for the Americanswe’re sure you see where we’re coming from…
Concretely ? Let’s not cut corners because today this phrase is no longer synonymous with achievement: the French team beats the United States 83-76, on a regular basis, and sends a nice message to the competition by view of the gold medal race. It’s obviously still a group match, but if you saw this match live you will agree with us that Team USA offered nothing to France, and you may have also noted that this defeat sounded like the first Americans at the Olympics for 17 years and the Athens fiasco.
Andrew Albicy, Evan Fournier, Nando De Colo, Thomas Heurtel, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Frank Ntilikina, Vincent Poirier, Rudy Gobert, Moustapha Fall, Guerschon Yabusele, Nicolas Batum, Petr Cornelie. Twelve men in the history of French basketball, just that, and a Japanese adventure that was just beginning and which would later go through Italy and Slovenia before returning to challenge the American ogre. We’ll talk to you about it very soon, but this victory remains engraved, whatever had happened.
