Thanks To Some Highly Suspicious Officiating, France Managed To Survive A Surprise OT Thriller Against Japan

Gregory Shamus. Getty Images.

Well, that was easily one of the most electric basketball games of the Olympics so far. Shoutout Japan who entered this matchup as +17.5 underdogs for taking France all the way to the brink of what would have been an extremely embarrassing loss for the home country. This is the beauty of the Olympics though, once you step in between the lines it's game on. Anyone can get beat on any given night if you aren't careful, which is what I think we all want during these Games (outside of Team USA). Give us drama, give us high pressure situations, give us random stars, shit like that.

I'd say that's exactly what this game provided as France got pushed to the brink, and of course, it wasn't without controversy.

It all started with Rui Hachimura (24 points on 10-16) getting ejected for two unsportsmanlike plays which were not only pretty weak, they were questionable at best.

Maybe the officials were technically following FIBA rules, but it's hard to ignore the fact that Rui was giving France hell and his ejection definitely impacted how the rest of the game went. Fortunately for Japan they had Yuki Kawamura who was easily one of the most electric players on the court

Kawamura signed an Exhibition-10 deal with the Grizzlies in July and you could see why given this performance. He had a chance to win it in regulation on a pullup 3 that looked good for about 95% of the way but unfortunately missed left, but make no mistake he was cooking everyone in front of him in this game, especially after Rui got tossed.

Of course that potential game winner wouldn't have mattered if not for the other instance of home cooking that seemed to benefit France, which game with Japan up 4 points in the final seconds

That's a TOUGH call in that moment. The picture at the top of the blog shows how close of a play that was, and there are some out there that think there was a slight push on the hip on the way up, but you can see the ref clearly call the foul after the release while both players were on the way down. In the picture you can see she's not even looking at the hip, but rather the release point where it doesn't look like there was much contact.

It's a 50/50 play at best in my opinion and probably should have been a no call. At the same time, Japan did screw up by crowding Gobert on that roll when a 2pt FG doesn't really hurt you, but if I'm Japan and their fans I'm admittedly heated over how this game unfolded. Between the Rui calls and that play, you never want to see officials have such a massive impact on the result, I don't care when or where the game is happening. 

On the France side, Evan Fournier had a pretty massive 3PM late and then Wemby did Wemby things down the stretch to seal the win

but we saw today what some of the limitations are with France. Their guard play is an issue, and considering this is one of the teams many think can give Team USA trouble, nothing we saw today from them really gives you pause as long as Team USA plays to their potential.