It was time for it to end: the French basketball team ended its painful World Cup with a difficult success against the modest Ivory Coast (87-77) for its second and last classification match, Saturday in Jakarta. The Blues, already winners of Iran (82-55), will finish between 17th and 20th places in a tournament approached with the ambition of winning it.
Serious against Iran after an indigestible first quarter offensively, they thwarted this time for almost the entire match, between lack of defensive investment and nonchalance (17 ball losses). They were still led three minutes from the siren (75-74) after counting up to ten points ahead in the third quarter (60-50).
They got away with it by scoring nine points without conceding a single one (83-75), including an award-winning shot from Nando De Colo who, like against Iran, woke up at the end of the match (13 pts ). Also note the individual performances of Sylvain Francisco (15 pts and 7 assists) and Rudy Gobert (15 pts and 8 rebounds).
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