Setting The Pick – Who can shock the world?

For all the promise Team Canada had heading into this year’s Olympics, their fifth-place finish will be remembered as a major disappointment.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA’s reigning MVP runner-up, put it best during his post-game.

“If you don’t earn it, that’s what happens – you lose.”

No credit will be given to their 3-0 finish in the group stage.

No mention will be made of the free-throw discrepancy for the host nation versus them.

France won. Canada lost. That’s all that will be remembered.

The good news for Team Canada, many of the core players will still be in prime shape when Los Angeles 2028 rolls around.

But with the Canadians out of the mix, it’s left to three formidable squads to dethrone Team USA, the overwhelming favourites to take home gold.

Unfortunately for them, the American squad has been unstoppable throughout this tournament winning every game by 17 points or more.

Considering the task at hand, let’s go through the hypothetical scenarios required for each remaining team to pull off the unthinkable.

SERBIA

Nikola Jokic and company will have the first crack at shocking the world.

After losing both their tune-up exhibition in Abu Dhabi and their group stage matchup versus USA, the Serbians have accumulated tons of film on how to lose to the Americans.

Team USA handedly defeated Serbia to open the Olympics winning all four quarters.

If there’s any hope for the Balkan nation, they must find a way to replicate the opening minutes of that group stage loss.

In that game, they came out to a blazing 10-2 start and forced US head coach Steve Kerr to call a timeout just three minutes into the contest.

Serbia continued to hold the lead, 20-14, up until Jokic was subbed out at the 2:33 mark.

From that point on, it was all Team USA.

Kevin Durant came off the bench and hit all five of his shot attempts before getting a quick breather; he returned to close out the half going a perfect 8-for-8.

Serbia did a great job dictating the energy and tempo to start but couldn’t apply the same pressure with Jokic resting.

They were dead even in the 31 minutes Jokic was active. In the nine minutes he sat, Serbia was a minus-26.

The good news for Serbia? In that opening barrage, Jokic only scored three of their 20 points.

He wasn’t close to his best, yet Team USA found themselves playing from behind.

The key to Serbia’s success was turnovers.

They generated four over that opening stretch which led to two free buckets.

Had Serbia themselves been more diligent with the ball, that lead could have easily been in the double digits.

While it sounds like lazy analysis, Serbia’s hopes depend on Jokic being MVP-form for 35 or more minutes.

He’s averaged 19.3 ppg so far and needs to be closer to 30 if they are to have a chance.

He’s yet to clear double-digit assists in any game during this Olympics.

He’ll likely need to hit that number to make the gold medal game.

GERMANY

As the defending FIBA World Champs, Germany has continued to overachieve with a very impressive showing thus far in Paris.

Team USA and Germany are the only remaining undefeated team and like the Americans, they’ve won all four contests by double-digit margins.

The stat that jumps off the page for Team Germany is their points allowed per game.

Of the 12 teams in the group stage, none allowed less than 80 points a game other than Germany.

They won Group B averaging 73.7 points allowed per game.

In their knockout win over Greece, they held the Hellas to 63 points.

There’s been a lot of talk about the difference in rules between the NBA game versus the FIBA game.

The two that Germany seems to have capitalized on is the increased physicality allowed by defences and the removal of the defensive three-second rule.

This has resulted in the German side holding a plus-50 points in the paint advantage over their opponents.

They don’t roster a rim deterring centre that changes the floor geometry like Victor Wembanyama.

The Germans simply operate a collective, well-oiled defence that dares opponents to beat them from deep.

In all four games, Germany’s opponents finished with over 40 per cent of their shot attempts coming from deep.

That worked against France who they handled beat by 14 points.

That strategy could be the key to victory against the Americans should they both reach the gold medal game.

America is obviously the more talented team, but as we’ve seen in single-elimination tournaments, basketball is a make-or-miss game.

All it takes is one cold shooting night for a team to crumble.

FRANCE

In their victory over Canada, the French squad made some bold starting lineup changes which ultimately tilted the game in their favour.

After some very underwhelming results with Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert sharing the floor, head coach Vincent Collet opted to bench the four-time Defensive Player of the Year who only ended up playing four minutes all game.

Team Canada’s weakness was their lack of size and France exploited that not with height, but with strength.

Former Boston Celtic, Guerschon Yabusele, played the game of his life bullying Canada’s frontcourt to the tune of 22 points.

He got to the line nine times and went 4-for-5 in the paint.

France generated a tournament leading 42 free-throw attempts in the quarterfinals and will need to get opponents in similar foul trouble to come away with the gold.

Two things seem predictable if the French are to make history on home soil.

The first – it seems like Gobert won’t have the same impact on winning as he did in years past.

The second – France must be the physical aggressor knowing the whistle might be in their favour.

The path to victory for France is an ugly one; they need to muck up these final two games.

They don’t have enough talent straight-up to defeat Germany and USA back-to-back.