PARIS — From breakfast with Giannis to a nightcap with LeBron, this was the greatest day of basketball that has ever been played in a single location.
Maybe Bercy Arena — mostly known for hosting tennis and handball tournaments — is an unlikely host for such a moment, but welcome to the quarterfinals of Olympic basketball, a 13-hour frenzy of hoops like has never before been seen.
Nothing against some great state high school tournament or the Final Four or even Rucker Park, but Tuesday was like the first day of March Madness at some sub-regional site only with packed crowds of over 15,000 for all four games; not swaths of empty seats because one team’s boosters are out to dinner.
And these games just happened to feature the very best players in the world playing the most skilled and sophisticated basketball imaginable.
Oh, and there were no television timeouts so the games took about two hours to play.
This was pure hoops.
Germany beat Greece in a game that started at 11 a.m. locally. Then Serbia roared back to defeat Australia in overtime, and France muscled Canada in front of a wild home crowd. Finally the Americans capped the day off as the clock approached midnight by running away from Brazil, 122-87.
For the US, led by Devin Booker with 18 points, this wasn’t much of a challenge. The Americans used depth and talent to overwhelm Brazil, avoiding the slow starts that have plagued them here. They appear to be peaking at the right time, which is good timing because the challenge is about to get considerable in their quest for a fifth consecutive gold.
It’ll be Germany vs. France and USA vs. Serbia Thursday in the semifinals, which promises, somehow, to be more extreme. Or we can hope.
Put it this way, when 15-year NBA veteran Patty Mills hits a fall away jumper over the outstretched hand of three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic to send the Australia-Serbia game into overtime and the entire joint is stomping and shouting and waving their flags, it is something out of basketball heaven.
Fourteen 2024 NBA All-Stars played at Bercy Arena on Tuesday. That includes six players who have won 13 of the last 16 NBA MVP awards — LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid.
Not to mention Victor Wembayana was on the court, too.
All of them played like it was a Game 7 because it was a Game 7 — one-and-done here in the knockout round, with everything from national pride to a potential medal on the line. Hard fouls. Fighting through screens. Battles on the block. And then there was passing, the shooting, the slashing, the brilliance.
The intensity of the games, the intensity of the fans, the intensity that those Olympic rings command.
You could hear in the voices of grizzled veterans who had been through everything. This was like nothing else.
“I feel exhausted, honestly,” said Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovic, a seven-year NBA veteran.
“The best basketball players in the world,” Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, last season's NBA MVP runner-up said. “It’s a very hard tournament, if not the hardest.”
Each game featured a fresh crowd, with fresh nationalism and energy for each team. There was no beating the French here, of course, but the dueling “USA, USA” and “BRA-zil” chants were everywhere late, if the result was never in doubt.
Of course, there are always the Serbians ready to blow the roof off any building they are in.
“We are a passionate country,” Vasilije Micic explained. “Passionate people.”
When the Summer Olympics comes to Los Angeles in 2028, this will be one of the hottest tickets of the Games.
David Stern would have loved every jaw-dropping play, every ear-breaking scream. He put together the 1992 Dream Team to inspire the world to take up basketball and 32 years it is here.
The United States remains the favorite to win another Olympic gold, but the competition isn’t just closer, it is more varied. No longer is the big game when one team gets to play the Americans. The drama and the rivalries are amongst themselves. The celebration of advancing is real. Every game is elite.
The Canada-France game felt like it was being played inside Cameron Indoor — or Old Trafford — with the host nation being spirited on by banging drums, songs and chants.
There were NBA players everywhere, although it was often some efforts from a Euro League star or an Australian Basketball League standout who made a difference.
Sure, everyone knows Wemby and Rudy Goubert, but Victor only had seven points and Goubert was mostly out recovering from finger surgery.
It didn’t matter. When the French put 6-9, 256-pound Mathias Lessort and 6-8, 271-pound Guerschon Yabusele in the game together, the Canadiens were struggling to fasten their chin straps and survive. All the while a-knowing French crowd roared with delight.
If the U.S. meets France in the finals, as is quite possible, then it will be a road game and then some.
“We home,” France’s Frank Ntilikina said. “We home.”
Home to the proof of concept that the Olympics could become a stage for real global competition and a one-of-a-kind environment.
The tournament is now special unto itself — future Hall of Famers diving after loose balls, MVP’s hammering each other for rebounds, unlikely heroes stroking down a three as their countrymen sing in their honor.
Olympic basketball has arrived in full here via the greatest quadruple header on the best day of basketball ever played … at least until they do it again in L.A.
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