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Since the US plays France for gold Friday night, our time that is, not Japan’s, we thought it would be a good idea to make today’s YouTube Gold the highlights from France’s victory over Slovenia.
You look at these highlights and a couple of things jump out. First, Luka Doncic is the closest thing we’ve seen to Larry Bird since Bird retired. At times he’s just surreal. We are by no means taking France lightly when we say this but we’re really glad that he won’t have the chance to go full Bird on the US in the gold medal game.
Because he might have.
Even so, the highlight of this game, and perhaps the greatest clutch play in the history of Olympic basketball, was Nicolas Batum’s brilliant block to preserve the victory.
As much as anything, it shows that the internationalization of basketball goes both ways. Not long ago, no one would have dreamed of an international player, other than perhaps Hakeem Olajuwon, making a play like that. If you can forgive the pun, it was the stuff of legend.