Canada's Olympic dream remains just that after excruciating loss

The dream remains deferred. 

That's been the story of Canadian basketball for so long now at the international level.

Even as the talent level has kept rising in leaps and bounds. Even as Canada Basketball has tried to do everything within its means to create an environment where the best players can have the best chance to shine when the lights are brightest. Even as a singular talent like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander plays until his legs almost go wobbly underneath him, or the indefatigable Lu Dort throws his considerable frame around with abandon, his spirit a raw open wound, in a desperate effort to make something happen, Canada falls short. 

It would be wrong to equate the most recent heartache — an 82-73 loss to France in the quarterfinals of the men’s team’s first Olympic appearance in 24 years — with so many that have come before. 

So many of those toe stubs were by teams trying and grasping and battling unseen ghosts. They were young. They were missing player x, y or z. They hadn’t played together long enough. 

Much of that baggage was stored last summer when Canada not only qualified for the 2024 Olympics but roared through the FIBA Basketball World Cup to earn a bronze medal.

It was a new day. Canada was talented. Canada was experienced. Canada was properly coached and Canada was well-funded. There were no excuses. 

But here’s the problem. The world sees Canada but has its own dreams to chase. The field in international basketball has only gotten deeper and more competitive since Steve Nash left the floor in tears after losing to — yes, France — in 2000 in Sydney.

This time, Canada had an excellent shot to finish on the podium in Paris and earn its first Olympic medal in hoops since winning silver in 1936 when the sport was in its infancy.

The Canadians were 3-0 in group play against stiff competition and were rewarded by being on the opposite side of the draw than Team USA, meaning they wouldn’t have to face international basketball’s last remaining Goliath until the gold medal final, and hey, in a 40-minute game, anything can happen.

But it says everything about the depth of the field in the post-Dream Team era that Canada — with 10 NBA players on their roster and the No. 2 betting favourite at the start of the competition — would still have to go through the home team, France, in the quarterfinals and then the undefeated World Cup champion Germans to have a chance at gold.

Canada never got to play Germany. 

Incredibly Canada held France’s two most pedigreed players — NBA stars Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert — to just six points, all by Wembanyama who was 2-for-10 for his night. But the Canadians were still forced to chase the game from beginning to end, until the buzzer sounded and their Olympic hopes disappeared like taillights over a hill. France came out trying to bury Canada in a corner and succeeded as the Canadians ran out of gas trying to punch their way out. 

“They were better than us, played harder than us and we saw it from the jump,” said Gilgeous-Alexander to CBC Olympics. “We obviously tried to make our run in the second half. It wasn't enough, but that's what happens when you let teams get off to a good start. They came out the aggressors, they punched us in the mouth. Yeah, they just play with more urgency, more force and like I said, they were aggressive on both ends of the floor.”

France zeroed in on Canada’s most obvious weakness — a relative lack of quality among its collection of big men — and forced the Canadians to defend with physicality in the paint.

The result was a 42-25 edge in free throws attempted as Canada couldn’t handle the burly likes of Guerschon Yabusele or Mathias Lessort without fouling. The pair have 74 NBA games combined on their resume but are elite contributors for top teams in Europe and used their hustle, smarts and brawn to combine for 35 points and 23 free throw attempts.

“We didn’t match their energy and physicality. Obviously, we knew that the home crowd would help. Obviously there was a big free throw disparity that didn't help either,” Canadian head coach Jordi Fernandez told CBC Olympics after the game. "Thought our guys fought in the second half, but still, the second-chance points and the free throws didn't really help us on the defensive end. Offensively, I thought it was (one of) our most selfish games, (we) did not share the ball. We had 14 assists with 14 turnovers, and for us, it's always been playing with pace, touches in the paint and reverse the basketball. That's how we got good shots, and that's what we've done for the most part, but not in the game that you had to win to stay in the tournament."

Complain about the officiating all you want, being the aggressor generally earns calls. 

Canada’s Dillon Brooks did an excellent job using his wide frame to get into the slender chest of Wembanyama, basketball’s next big thing, and Dort was a hazard defensively for France all game long, but no one was planning for Isaia Cordinier to come off the bench and score 20 points on 10 shots in 24 minutes. 

Meanwhile, Jamal Murray, the Denver Nuggets star who finally suited up for Canada for the first time since 2015, suddenly couldn’t shoot straight. The playoff killer who averaged 26 points a game and shot nearly 40 per cent from three in Denver’s run to the NBA title in 2023, looked hesitant and discombobulated coming off the bench for his national team. 

In the most important game for the Canadian men’s team in nearly a quarter century, Murray was a non-factor, finishing 3-of-13 from the floor for seven points. Ugh. 

There hasn’t been much to find fault with head coach Fernandez over the past two summers. His adjustments have been quick, his substitution patterns without favour. But sticking with Murray down the stretch over, say, Andrew Nembhard or Nickeil Alexander-Walker probably deserves an explanation, even if the answer is: “I kept expecting one of my most proven players to look like himself.”

It never happened, meanwhile, guys from France who most basketball fans have never heard of kept torching Canada, driving the home crowd crazy. 

International basketball is like that. World-class players falter. Then there are hardwood assassins in every corner of the globe, just waiting to do hoops violence to the unsuspecting at an inopportune moment.

Meanwhile, Canada didn’t arrive in Paris fully armed.

The crowd was loud and singing and chanting. It was as if a soccer stadium crowd had moved indoors for greater amplification.

How much that affected the Canadians is hard to know.

Certainly, they didn’t deal with it very well in the first half. Canada surrendered a 12-0 run to France in the first quarter and trailed 23-10 to start the second. They trailed 41-25 at halftime, a deficit that would have been much larger had not Gilgeous-Alexander reeled off 11 straight points at one point in the second quarter. 

He didn’t have much help, however.

There were some signs the tide would turn in the second half. 

Gilgeous-Alexander put the ball on the floor and got fouled, Dort drove to the rim and got fouled and RJ Barrett forced his way into the paint and got fouled, all in the space of four minutes. The difference on the scoreboard remained stubbornly in double-digits, but Canada was finally on the front foot after a disastrous first half. 

Trialling by 11 to start the fourth quarter, Canada quickly cut France’s lead to six on a 5-0 spurt by Barrett and twice in the quarter they cut France’s lead to five — the last time on a drive by Dort with 2:14 to play. But fully getting over the hump proved difficult. 

Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished with 27 points on 9-of-19 shooting, missed a pair of free throws that could have cut the lead to four, his legs perhaps showing the burden of playing 37 of 40 minutes.

Shockingly, Murray looked gun-shy as his tournament-long shooting slump — he finished 9-of-31 from the floor over four games — continued. He missed point-blank bunnies. He passed up wide-open looks at three. He drove the ball looking to score, got cut off and turned it over. He drove the ball looking to pass and turned the ball over doing that also. Not pretty.

Wembanyama was largely a non-factor statistically, but he created just enough problems: A score in the post just as the clock was expiring before halftime and a kick out to an open three-point shooter as Canada collapsed around him in the second half. Meanwhile, his looming threat in the paint caused problems down the stretch, most notably with just under three minutes left when Canada, getting a second chance on an offensive rebound, played hot potato with the ball in the paint before Brooks got his shot blocked trying to find room to squeeze off a jumper over the seven-foot-four praying mantis.

Canada grinded to the end. This was not an effort problem. Dort dove to save a loose ball and set up a Barrett score in transition, and on another sequence came from nowhere to make a strip and score a fast break lay-up of his own. His last play of the tournament was diving to make a steal in the final seconds.

But in what was the equivalent of a win-or-go-home Game 7 in the opponent’s gym, Canada came up short. The Canadians started slowly. They didn’t have enough players come to the party. Their NBA pedigree didn’t matter against French players having the game of their lives.

That’s how it works at this level of international basketball. Special things happen, the home team pulls an upset and sends the crowd to the streets in celebration. Sometimes you’re at the other end of it.

For decades Canada wasn’t even at the party. The Canadians could only watch and wish. What sucks is that it will be four more years before Canada even gets a chance at a do-over.

It’s what makes the spectacle so great and so excruciating all at once.

But Canadian basketball is in a better place than it ever has been, so this kind of pain we better get used to.