France held off a second-half surge from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Canada to earn an 82-73 victory in the Olympic men’s basketball tournament on Tuesday.
The host country will move forward to play undefeated Germany in Thursday’s semifinal.
It was a busy day on the basketball front ahead of the U.S. men’s matchup with Brazil in the quarterfinals, with host country France defeating Canada, Serbia beating Australia and Germany coming back against Greece to reach the semifinals.
France ekes out win over Canada
It wasn’t pretty at times, but France will be advancing to the semis after an 82-73 win over Canada on Tuesday.
The game could not have started worse for Canada. At one point, they had just two baskets and seven turnovers, while France led them 19-5. But as we saw in the Serbia-Australia and Greece-Germany games, early leads can disappear relatively quickly. Even though Canada had narrowed France’s lead to just 10 midway through the second quarter, they went into halftime down 45-29.
Canada was able to come out of the half strong, outscoring France 21-16 in the third period, and never let France build a comfortable lead, even getting within five with just over four minutes to play. But France stayed aggressive, and Evan Fournier hit a dagger 3-pointer with just under a minute to go to put France up by 10.
