France’s Elie Okobo against Lebanon in the Fiba World Cup. -FIBA PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines-Without a genuine threat in the middle, France climbed and clawed before scraping past Lebanon, 85-79, on Tuesday night at 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The back-to-back bronze medalist in these world championships missed their bigs—Rudy Gobert, Moustapha Fall and Mathias Lessort—allowing the Lebanese to put up a gallant stand that they nearly pulled off.
NBA veteran Nicolas Batum hit a pair of threes in the fourth, the second one on the corner pegging the final count with half a minute remaining.
But it was Elie Okobo and Isaia Cordinier who turned things around for a French squad that had to rise from 10 points down in the first half triggered by the accurate snipings of Lebanon’s Wael Arakji.
France, ranked No. 5 in the world and silver medalist in the previous 2021 Tokyo Olympics, finally picked up a win following a pair of setbacks against Canada and Latvia in Group H.
France at the Fiba World Cup. -FIBA PHOTO
Okobo came off the bench and scored all of his 12 points in the final quarter while Cordinier jumpstarted a 7-0 run with a three on the corner and capped it off with a dunk that erased Lebanon’s advantage for good.
Arakji, the reigning Asia Cup MVP, finished with a career-high 29 points in his country’s biggest game so far after absorbing defeats against Latvia and Canada.
Guerschon Yabusele banged in 18 points and Evan Fournier had three triples and lit up the scoreboards with 17 for the French, whose lone win in the opening group stage relegated them to the classification phase along with the winless Lebanese.
Gobert, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ rim protector in the NBA, got sidelined due to an ankle injury while the 7-foot-1 Fall is dealing with a toothache.
Lessort, another big man in the French rotation, had to rest a recently recovered ankle injury for the remainder of the tournament to avoid any potential risks to his health.