The French men's basketball team, whose chances of stopping the LeBron James–Steph Curry two-man game are supposed to make me afraid for some reason, would not have advanced past Japan on Tuesday without some serious help from the referees. Am I in the legal clear to call them cheating cheaters who cheated the mighty and noble Japanese team out of a deserved win to take Un victoire du Mickey Mouse? No, I can't say that the pitiful French needed some serious home cooking to avoid painful disappointment. Thus I will simply note what happened in the second half of the game, when France benefitted from a series of totally fraudulent calls, dishonoring themselves in the process.
France won in overtime, 94-90, and were paced by a characteristically gaudy stat line from Victor Wembanyama: 18 points, 11 boards, six dimes, four stocks, and two feet taller than a guy. France is one of the two best teams in the tournament and as such they were expected to roll Japan without much quarrel. But just as the Japan women's team did against the United States on Monday, the men let it fly from three.
Both Japan teams wound up shooting better from distance than they did from inside the arc, which is not that surprising given that A'ja Wilson and Rudy Gobert are the best rim protectors in the world. Yuki Kawamura, who is headed to Memphis after the Olympics for a chance at making the Grizzlies roster, led all players with 29 points and six threes. But Japan's only full-rostered NBA player was also their best—until he was cruelly yoinked from the game, that is.
Rui Hachimura was cooking France. On Japan's first possession of the game, he sized up Wembanyama and nailed a pull-up jumper right in his eye. He scored 24 efficient points, mostly against Wemby, and he also spent most of his time on the court guarding one of the two French centers. France threatened to pull away with a rugged 12-4 run in a period spanning the end of the third and start of the fourth quarters, only for Hachimura to nail two three-pointers to bring his team within two points.
On the very next play of the game, Hachimura grabbed Gobert's arm and prevented him from making an easy layup. Game officials reviewed this totally normal foul and deemed it unsportsmanlike—Hachimura's second unsportsmanlike foul, as Bilal Coulibaly flopped his way into a fake one earlier in the game—and ejected him.
Despite losing Hachimura, Japan was in position to win the game in regulation. Kawamura hit two clutch free throws with 16 seconds left to lock in a four-point lead, and all Japan had to do was avoid fouling on a three-point attempt. I like that they played normal defense on the ensuing possession, rather than let France do whatever and simply try to win the free throw game. Kawamura contested a Matthew Strazel three, again, totally cleanly, only for the referees to inexplicably whistle a shooting foul. Kawamura contested the shot with his right hand, and was called for a foul because his off-hand seemed to restrict Strazel. It did not, as videos and photos show pretty clearly. France made good on the ill-gotten second chance and won in overtime.
Kawamura said after the game he thought it wasn't a foul, which, again, is correct. Japan has now lost its first two group games, and its hope of being one of the two third-place teams to advance to the knockout rounds requires beating Brazil and getting some help. It shouldn't be like this! They should be riding high after beating France, who, again, was not definitively helped by the IOC and French basketball holding the referees' feet to the fire and forcing them to make sure the host nation won. There is no proof that happened, so.
