The men’s basketball tournament begins its final round of group play with four games on Friday, as France and Germany battle atop Group B, Giannis Antetokounmpo hopes to keep Greece alive and Canada looks to stay perfect in Paris.
Follow along for a breakdown of all the day’s action from Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL STANDINGS
MEN’S BASKETBALL STANDINGS
Men’s Group B: Brazil 104, Japan 82
We knew that both of these teams love a track meet, boy did they not disappoint, racking up XXX total points and a whopping XX 3-point attempts over 40 minutes of breakneck action.
And while Japan made things interesting down the stretch, in the end Brazil’s offense was simply too much to overcome. Former NBA wing Bruno Caboclo put together one of the games of the men’s tournament so far, pouring in XX points on XX-of-XX from the field to go with 16 rebounds. He even provided the defensive moment of the game with a monster block at the rim against Yuta Watanabe:
Brazil was on fire from the opening tip, scoring 31 points in the first quarter. Japan, meanwhile, was really missing star Rui Hachimura, suspended for this game after his ejection late in the near-upset against France earlier in the week. Watanabe and point guard Yuki Kawamura struggled to put up the offensive slack, shooting a combined 13-for-36 and 6-for-17 from deep on the day.
Japan did some show signs of life in the second half, largely thanks to big man Josh Hawkinson, who erupted for 16 points and four 3s in the third quarter — the last of which cut Brazil’s lead all the way down to 1. But the offense dried up from there, with just 11 points in the final quarter while Brazil pulled away.
Japan’s run in Paris comes to an end at 0-3. For Brazil, however, there’s still some hope of advancing to the knockout round at 1-2: The Brazilians are guaranteed to finish behind France and Germany in Group B, but the top two third-place teams will move on to the quarterfinals, meaning Brazil will be watching intently over the next couple of days to see if it gets the help it needs.
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