“It was a horrible game for us.” Asked at a press conference, Vincent Collet delivered his analysis after the 65-95 defeat against Canada on Friday, in Jakarta, for the first game of the Blues at the Basketball World Cup. “After the first period, we were in the game, we could have done better by playing more inside. But at -3, we were in the game (43-40 at the break). But we started the second half very badly and when they widened the gap, we collapsed, we lost our collective game and we completely disappeared in the last quarter of an hour. at a press conference, before answering questions in French in the mixed zone.
Beyond the defeat, do we imagine you particularly upset by the way?Vincent Collet: Of course. We really let go at the end of the match, which explains this damaging gap because we no longer have our destiny in our hands (with a view to qualifying for the quarters, editor’s note). Now we have to win the matches and hope that Canada wins them too because otherwise we will be out of the competition. It’s horrible. We wanted to avoid falling into the trap of their over-pressure (defensive) and that’s what caused us to blow up everything in the second period. We responded with direct play to enormous defensive pressure, which was also tolerated (by the referees): sometimes it was beyond the limit. But we had to adapt and move the ball. In the first half we should have driven the nail inside when we saw that Mathias (Lessort) was dominating. We didn’t do it at all.
What was said in the locker room? That we had to get up, even if it’s not easy 5 minutes after the end of the match. We didn’t become a bad team, but we took an uppercut that knocked us out and we saw that at the end some players were totally stunned. It’s up to us to bounce back, find our minds and our game.
Do you remember such a slap? No. You can’t predict that. I had imagined that we could lose but not this way. It’s totally inexplicable, but that’s sport, that’s how it is unfortunately. I really did not expect us to be in this state, but I knew that this team was potentially formidable. I think the players really did not expect this opposition, which contributed to the fact that we sank as soon as there were 12 or 14 points behind.
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