This small final between Team USA and Canada looked like an NBA match, with players everywhere who play in the Big League. And in addition to coming together, the players in this match put on a great show, summed up in the last action of Mikal Bridges to snatch extra time.
The Canadians ended up winning and thus taking a sort of revenge on the American big brother, still deprived of a medal in a World Cup, as in the 2019 edition.
“They haven’t won a medal since the 1930s so they’re coming for us,” recalls Tyrese Haliburtonsince Canada won silver at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, for the first appearance of basketball. “Both countries expect to meet again in the years to come, so this match is a start. »
The words of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander confirm this. “We are going to try to win the Olympic Games. I have confidence, we have a very good group and the more we play together, the better we will be. I am impatient “launches the star of the country with the maple leaf for Eurohoops.
Canada wants to break American hegemony at the Olympic Games
A major challenge for Canada, which will participate in the Olympics in 2024 for the first time since 2000. At the same time, the Americans have won the Olympic competition four times and each time since 2008, and no doubt they will have a better team in Paris than this summer in Manila.
However, where, thanks to Nick Nurse, the Canadians were able to install a hard core and continuity to work over time, the Americans have to tinker year after year, as Steve Kerr regretted.
Before the match, Jaren Jackson Jr, who did not play in this last match, explained that he hoped to see his former Memphis teammate Dillon Brooks trashtalking, “otherwise, it wouldn’t really be him”. The new player from Houston shone with 39 points, and there is no doubt that he will be keen to remind his opponents on Sunday, during the regular season, that he has a medal around his neck.
While waiting to meet again and explain ourselves again in Paris next summer and in future years as the prospects are encouraging on the Canadian side (Jamal Murray and Andrew Wiggins can still join this group…) and as the Americans will be vengeful so as not to be overtaken by this rising power.
