On July 27, Beijing time, the Paris Olympics officially opened to usher in the first day of competition, the Olympic men's basketball group B ushered in the first competition, Germany men's basketball team faced Japan men's basketball, Group B has a total of Germany, France, Japan and Brazil four teams, according to the strength, Germany and France basically locked the two places directly out of the group, Japan and Brazil are relatively poor, in the official power list Brazil ninth, Japan tenth, on the edge of the top 8, can compete for the third place in the group to compete for the final qualifying places.
At the beginning of the game, the Germany team quickly entered the state, under the leadership of Theis and Schroeder, an early lead, due to the huge difference in the strength of the two teams, Germany beat Japan in the previous warm-up game, after the lead Germany was obviously a little lax, the offensive and defensive play was relatively single, which gave the Japan team the opportunity to steal chickens, hit three consecutive points to bite the score, and Japan 21-28 in the first quarter only 7 points behind.
In the second quarter, although it was still unable to impact the inside, Japan maintained a hot outside touch, which caused Germany to gradually change its defensive strategy, and also gave the Japan team a gap to impact the inside, the two teams played back and forth, and the mentally relaxed Germany team obviously began to be a little nervous and began to increase physical confrontation, and Japan was only 8 points behind at 44-52 at halftime.
After the break, the Germany team further improved the impact on the inside, while the defense strengthened the physical confrontation and improved the protection of rebounding, and the point difference was quickly stretched to double digits.
Even so, the margin was not completely widened, and the Japan men's basketball team still played its own style of play in a limited range, trailing by 13 points at 61-74 at the end of the third quarter.
Entering the final quarter of the competition, the German team did not give another chance to further open the score, but the game did not lose suspense early, the two teams still played back and forth, until the last 3 minutes completely collapsed, and finally Germany beat Japan 97-77 to get the opener.
Since the Germany men's basketball team is a strong contender for medals and the first echelon team in the world basketball today, there is not much suspense about the outcome of the game itself, even so, the gap between the two teams in this game still makes people realize the gap between Asian basketball and world basketball.
For the Japan men's basketball team, reaching the Olympics has actually been successful, even with NBA-level players such as Hachimura and Yuta Watanabe, their overall strength is the worst of the 12 teams.
But they did not give up in this game, facing the strong Germany men's basketball team, playing their own characteristics and abilities.
In the first half, the Japan team fought for 16 rebounds (5 frontcourt boards), while the tall Germany men's basketball team only had 13 rebounds (2 frontcourt boards), which shows the effort of the Japan men's basketball team in this game.
In addition to rebounds, Hachimura had 20 points and 10 rebounds, Hawkins had 13 points and 11 rebounds, Kawamura Yuki had 11 points and 7 assists, Yuta Watanabe had 16 points, and Yoshii Yutaka had 10 points.
In addition to the poor feeling of the core Hachimura, who only made 4 of 19 shots in the game, the Japan team almost delivered a perfect performance, and Hachimura was understandably inefficient as the Japan team's scoring arrows limited by the Germany team.
As a result, in this situation, Germany finally won easily by 20 points, and even if there were many problems in the first half, Germany was still able to control the situation.
With the Japan men's basketball team's fitness slightly declining in the second half, the Germany men's basketball team directly took away the game victory.
As media person Mai Suifeng commented after the game, the Japan team played quite well in this game, at least played modern basketball, on the other hand, the Germany men's basketball team did not do its best, the whole game was very relaxed, did not pinch the opponent's small guard, and there was no desire for the ball, but as long as they were tight, the point difference was stretched to more than 10 points, like a cat teasing mice.
The Japan men's basketball team is already very good, but Asian basketball has been left too far behind by the world basketball world.
Commentator Yin Hai also gave the same view, since the defeat of the qualifiers, Puerto Rico, South Sudan, the Bahamas, Japan, the Philippines and other "basketball third world" are looking for their own way to catch up with the world's mainstream, I believe that Chinese fans are also in the mood when watching the game.
Combined with the previous defeat to Australia by Spain, the intensity of the two games was very different.
The world's mainstream basketball has long broken the original stereotype that high, fast and quasi-three are incompatible, and the top players of modern basketball are not only tall and strong, but also fast, full of physical energy, accurate shooting, and excellent teamwork.
In contrast, Asian basketball seems to have just ended the era of cold weapons and entered the era of firearms, while the world's top basketball level is already building its own aircraft carrier.