The men's basketball tournament begins its final round of group play with four games on Friday, as France and Germany battle atop Group B, Giannis Antetokounmpo hopes to keep Greece alive and Canada looks to stay perfect in Paris. Follow along for a breakdown of all the day's action from Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
Men's Group A: Greece 77, Australia 71
Giannis Antetokounmpo would not go quietly into the night, helping will Greece to its first win of these Olympics in a white-knuckle finish against Australia.
For a while it seemed like Greece might run away with things. Giannis started off quickly with four early baskets, and some ferocious team defense hounded Josh Giddey and Patty Mills into their worst games of the competition thus far. Australia managed just 12 points while turning it over five times in the second quarter as Greece took a commanding 53-36 lead into halftime.
But if these Games have taught us anything, it's that no lead is safe, and sure enough Australia started to chip away. A 14-3 run cut the lead to just seven early in the fourth, and after a Giannis 3 to stop the bleeding, the Dunkaroos ripped off another 14-4 run to pull within two at the 3:18 mark of the fourth.
And then, for the first time really all tournament, Giannis got some much-needed help. With the eyes of the entire defense on him, Giannis assisted on consecutive 3s to Thomas Walkup and Vasileios Toliopoulos that salted the game away.
Australia shot just 40% from the field on the day and 10-of-21 from the foul line, with Giddey and Mills combining to go just 7-of-22 with nine turnovers. Giannis finished with a game-high 20 points to go with seven rebounds and six assists on typically efficient 8-of-11 shooting.
The win throws Group A into some real chaos, with Greece tied with Australia on points but ahead in the standings thanks to the head-to-head tiebreaker. But Greece previously lost to Spain, meaning a three-way tie between the Greeks, Spanish and Aussies would shift the tiebreaker to point differential.
Men's Group A: Canada 88, Spain 85
Canada finished off a perfect 3-0 run through group play with an 88-85 win over Spain on Friday in its Group A finale at Stade Pierre-Mauroy, but it didn't come as easily as many likely expected.
Canada used a big second quarter to take a double-digit lead into the break. But Spain came roaring back in the final period, nine quick points from Dario Brizuela (team-high 17 points) cutting the deficit to just three. The Spaniards would keep it within one possession for most of the rest of the game, but they couldn't get the stop they needed against a ruthlessly efficient Canadian offense led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (23 points on 5-of-11 shooting) and RJ Barrett (16 on 6-of-10).
Barrett hit a huge 3 to stretch the lead back to 85-80 with under two minutes to play, and SGA sank three free throws in the final 15 seconds to ice the win.
Canada puts itself in position for one of the top two overall seeds, which could put it on the opposite side of the bracket as the U.S. Spain, meanwhile, is officially eliminated from knockout-round contention.
Men's Group B: Brazil 104, Japan 82
Brazil got its first win in Paris and also punched a ticket to the quarterfinals all in one swoop on Saturday, racing past Japan in a fun and free-wheeling game.
We knew that both of these teams love a track meet, and boy did they not disappoint, racking up 186 total points and a whopping 69 3-point attempts over 40 minutes of breakneck action.
But while Japan made things interesting down the stretch, in the end Brazil's offense was simply too much to overcome. Former NBA wing Bruno Caboclo put together one of the games of the men's tournament so far, pouring in 33 points on 13-of-19 from the field to go with 16 rebounds. He even provided the defensive moment of the game with a monster block at the rim against Yuta Watanabe:
Brazil was on fire from the opening tip, scoring 31 points in the first quarter. Japan, meanwhile, was really missing star Rui Hachimura, suspended for this game after his ejection late in the near-upset against France earlier in the week. Watanabe and point guard Yuki Kawamura struggled to pick up the offensive slack, shooting a combined 13-for-36 and 6-for-17 from deep on the day.
Japan did some show signs of life in the second half, largely thanks to big man Josh Hawkinson, who erupted for 16 points and four 3s in the third quarter — the last of which cut Brazil's lead all the way down to 1. But the offense dried up from there, with just 11 points in the final quarter while Brazil pulled away.
Japan's run in Paris comes to an end at 0-3. Brazil, however, lives to fight another day, clinching one of the two third-place spots in the quarterfinals thanks to a superior point differential than Greece and Spain.
Men's Group B: Germany 85, France 71
A new gold-medal contender has entered the chat. Dennis Schroder and Franz Wagner ran roughshod over the usually-sturdy French defense for a near-wire-to-wire win that gave the Germans Group B and announced them as maybe the biggest threat to the U.S.