Olympic vice-champions, the French beaten Turkey after extension (87-86).
Le Monde
At the end of the suspense, the French basketball team went to seek its qualification for the quarter -finals of the Euro Basketball, Saturday September 10, in Berlin, Germany. Olympic vice-champions, in 2021 in Tokyo, the Blues beat Turkey after extension by the smallest of the differences, 87-86.
The French will have trembled until a few seconds from the end of the match. However, they had taken a very good start. They even counted fourteen points a little less than three minutes from half-time (38-24), but the Turks gave up the score before the break (43-35).
The third quarter was then catastrophic for the Blues who collapsed, conceding a 19-0, allowing the Turkish selection to take eight points ahead (49-57).
While the chances of the French seemed tiny to twelve seconds of regulation time, the errors of Cedi Osman on the launch-free line, then on a bad pass, allowed a well-placed Rudy Gobert to tear the prolongation D ‘A raging dunk (77-77).
Help on overtime, counting five points a minute and thirty seconds from the end (87-82), the French have again seen the players of Ergin Ataman take over and come back to a point . Until the Turks lose the ball facing the French defense a few seconds from the final whistle, allowing the Blues to keep a small step ahead and to win. In the quarterfinals, they will be opposed either to the Serbs or to the Italians, Wednesday, September 14.