France knocks off Canada to advance to semifinals, will face Germany

PARIS – Maybe Victor Wembanyama knew what was coming.

Before tipoff of France’s men’s basketball win over Canada on Tuesday night at Bercy Arena, just after a crowd of approximately 20,000 chanted his country’s national anthem so proudly, and with the energy in the building continuing to rise, the 20-year-old sensation who rose to prominence nearby raised his arms to the sky as if they had already won. It would take two hours for his foreshadowing to unfold, but Wembanyama and his fellow Frenchmen were reaching for the sky again at the end too.

Their 82-73 upset sends France into a semifinal game against Germany on Thursday, when they’ll attempt to secure a medal in this sport for just the fourth time (in 12 appearances).

For Canada, a team that was widely seen as a gold-medal threat to Team USA and featured 10 NBA players, this loss is an unexpected step backward after they won the program’s first-ever medal at the FIBA World Cup tournament last summer (a bronze). Canada has just one men’s basketball Olympic medal in the country’s history (11 appearances), a silver from 1936.

The French were raising eyebrows even before tipoff, as coach Vincent Collet made the bold choice to take two of his program’s most revered players, Rudy Gobert and Evan Fournier, out of the starting lineup. He went with Frank Ntilikina, Nic Batum, Guerschon Yabusele, Isaia Cordinier and Victor Wembanyama, marking the third time in the tournament Team France had changed its starters.

The biggest surprise was Gobert, the four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, who no longer played his Twin Towers role with Wembanyama. He didn’t enter the game until 7:41 left in the first half and finished with just three minutes of action. Gobert later revealed he had surgery on his left ring finger the day before and was thankful to have played in the win over Canada.

Yabusele, meanwhile, made Collet’s move look masterful. The 28-year-old big man finished with 21 points and five rebounds. Ditto for Cordinier, who had 20 points. Wembanyama had just five points in 26 minutes, though he did grab 10 rebounds. The Canadiens shot just 38 percent from the field, and had 14 turnovers, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finishing with a team-high 25 points.

Team France wasted no time in taking complete control of the frenzied crowd of locals, as they led 23-10 after the first quarter. The Canadiens, whose defense had been suffocating in this tournament and a stark contrast to their inconsistent offense, came out tight and sloppy.

Dillon Brooks missed his first five shots (finishing one of nine). Jamal Murray’s disappearing act, which was an issue all the way through, began anew (he finished three of 13). R.J. Barrett wasn’t saving the day like he had in games past. And Gilgeous-Alexander, who had been carrying this team along with Barrett and Brooks to this point, was bottled up in the kind of way that the basketball world hasn’t seen in quite some time.

With 15 seconds left in the half, Yabusele buried a three-pointer that almost felt like a fourth-quarter dagger as France led 45-29 at the half. It would take a little while longer for France to finish the job, but it would indeed raise the roof at the end.

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(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)