RJ Barrett #9 of Team Canada goes up for a basket past Santi Aldama #7 of Team Spain during the Men's Group Phase - Group A game between Team Canada and Team Spain on Aug. 2, in Lille, France.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Some anxious Canadians waited for the final seconds to tick down on Friday.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t among them.
The guard had helped Canada’s men’s basketball team take a 14-point lead over Spain in their final game of group play at the Paris Olympics, only to see the advantage wither to a single point with seconds left on the clock.
Despite the circumstances, Gilgeous-Alexander said he wasn’t nervous.
“They obviously didn’t want to go away. They’re playing for their lives. We knew that going into the game. So it’s a really good team,” he said after hitting the two free throws that gave Canada an 88-85 win.
“They gave us everything they had. It was a good game.”
The victory saw Canada improve to 3-0 at the Olympic tournament. Spain was eliminated after falling to 1-2.
“You could see them fighting for their lives right to the end,” said Canadian forward Kelly Olynyk. “For us, we’re trying to put ourselves in the best position possible to succeed and hopefully we’ve done enough to do that.”
The two sides were level at 19-19 at the end of the opening frame before Canada pulled away in the second quarter.
Under double pressure 1:45 into the second, Andrew Nembhard sunk a silky three-pointer that put the Canadians up 22-21. They never relinquished the lead.
Nembhard put up 18 points on the night, eclipsing the 3.5 per game the 24-year-old from Aurora, Ont., averaged over his first two Olympic appearances.
“I’m playing with a new team, new guys, just trying to get a feel for it. And I think as the games go on, experience goes on, you get more and more comfortable,” Nembhard said of the performance. “I think today, I just filled in the gaps where I was needed most.”
The second-year point guard for the Indiana Pacers has played well in the tournament, said Canada’s head coach, Jordi Fernandez.
“I think he’s had a great performance,” he said.
“We’ve always talked about being the X factor. When you have so many great NBA players that have different roles on their NBA team, and they come here and they’re asked to do something else and – most of them – play less minutes, just the fact that they are selfless and they do whatever it takes for the team to win, that means the world for not just the rest of the team, but for the program. So these guys have the right mindset to be successful.”
Gilgeous-Alexander led the Canadians on Friday with 20 points, three rebounds and two assists.
Midway through the second, the 26-year-old from Toronto picked up a loose ball, weaved his way into the paint, spun and sank a shot that gave Canada a 32-28 lead.
The Canadians took a 49-38 lead into halftime before Spain began to chip away in the third.
Dario Brizuela paced the Spaniards on with 17 points across the game, and made all five of his three-point attempts.
With 2.7 seconds to go in the game, Sergio Llull whittled Canada’s advantage to 86-85 with a three-pointer.
After a series of whistles for a timeout and a foul, Gilgeous-Alexander gave his team some breathing room – and the win – by making a pair of free throws.
Spain won the second half of the game on Friday, said head coach Jordi Fernandez.
“We were not good enough,” he said. “And in that second half, I think we were a little loose with our execution, we were not good with rebounding throughout the game.
“But we found a way. And when you don’t have experience in this type of games, and you don’t know what this type of games mean, the only way that you can get experienced is going through it.”
The result leaves Canada atop Group A heading into the knockout round, which begins with the quarter-finals in Paris on Tuesday. The semi-finals are scheduled for Thursday and medal games are set for Aug. 10.
A draw on Saturday will determine the quarter-final pairings, though Canada’s perfect 3-0 record will figure into the weighting.
Going undefeated in group play was nice, Gilgeous-Alexander said, but there’s a lot of Olympic basketball to go.
“You always want to win, so we’ll take it,” he said. “We played a lot of really good teams. We beat them all. Some things we can clean up for sure, but we’ll take it.”
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