LILLE (France) - For a quarter and a half, the nerves in the arena were palpable. France struggled to make shots, Brazil enjoyed being the relaxed team out there, and opened up a 12-point lead.
That's when Victor Wembanyama had enough. The 20-year-old superstar proved his worth in his first game at the Olympics, powering a strong second quarter on offense, anchoring the rest of the game defensively to give France a 78-66 win over Brazil.
Turning point
How nervous were the hosts? So much so, we witnessed a shot from nearly half court by Victor Wembanyama in early offense, even though France were down by 10 at that point.
How pumped up were the Brazilians? Well, that was the point when Joao Cardoso Maozinha delivered one of the major highlights of the event, already on day one, destroying Rudy Gobert's block attempt on an alley-oop and-one.
Brazil had a 12-point lead then, early in the second quarter, but it felt like that dunk was a trigger for the French team to start playing better basketball.
Victor Wembanyama finally started getting the ball closer to the rim, resulting in three major first half dunks of his own, while defensively Brazil ran out of options against the towering couple of Wemby and Rudy Gobert.
France took the lead before the end of the first half, then went on to hold Brazil to just nine points in the third, opening up a 13-point of their own. In a low scoring affair such as this, it felt like a 20-point lead.
Brazil did have one last attempt of a comeback, crawling within four with five minutes left. But Frank Ntilikina and Isaia Cordinier made back-to-back jumpers, followed by a Nicolas Batum steal and a layup to make it 69-58 with four to play.
Game hero
It is next to impossible to describe everything that Victor Wembanyama does on the floor. The cheers for him were the loudest during team introductions, every shot he took was followed by "oohs!" and every dunk by "ahhs!" from the 27,000 fans in the stands and probably millions watching the game on TV around the world.
Wemby finished with 19 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 blocks on the day.
Stats don't lie
The fact that France won the blocks stat 6-1 doesn't exactly look game changing. However, the intimidation factor of those blocks, especially by Gobert and Wembanyama, was off the charts.
Brazil started avoiding attempts around them, they began settling for contested jumpshots, and lost the depth in their offensive approach, only going lateral, from side to side, trying to escape the shadow of the two giants.
Bottom line
France climb to 1-0 ahead of their matchup with Japan, but still have plenty to work on offensively. Nicolas Batum with 19 points was the only other player in double digits, Nic and Ntilikina made 6-of-14 three-pointers on the day, but the rest of the team was a combined 2-of-11 from the same distance.
For Brazil, Leo Meindl played a solid game with 14 points, Marcelinho Huertas scored 11 with 5 assists, proving once again he's nowhere near done, even at 41 years of age.
Yago Santos was limited to less than 15 minutes, coach Aco Petrovic surely is monitoring his condition ahead of the potential do-or-die game against Japan on Game day 3. Before that, Brazil have to face Germany next.
They said
"Taking everything that's given to me and communicating a lot with my teammates. It's about sacrifices. We're all here for a purpose, we've got just on the inside positions two of the best players in EuroLeague, and two good frontrunners for the (NBA) defensive player of the year. And we're all ready to give our spot to the next guy. Nic (Batum) and coach (Collet) have been together for the 20 years, they know each other, and I like the way they've tried to install me in this system." - Victor Wembanyama on being a factor already, despite being one of the newest guys in the national team
"It's easy to play basketball with him. His size first, but he knows how to play the game. I've played with so many great players in my career, but to play with a young guy with such high IQ, it's easy to play with him, around him, to give him the ball. He's so good, the defense is so attracted to him, so I just try to find him in the right spots so we can play around him. Especially in the first half, he did great." - Nic Batum on Wemby
He's not far - Vincent Collet asked if Wemby is almost Michael Jordan
"It was the first time in his career I thought he was a bit stressed. Three days before the game I felt that he was a little bit stressed, so we talked together, everybody around him, his teammates, the rest of the staff, we tried to help him, and he's so mature, day by day it got better. In France, everybody waits for him like... I don't know which word to use, but everybody waited for him. People who know basketball, they understand that he's only 20 years old. But for people that like sports, but don't know basketball, they think Victor is already Michael Jordan (laughs). It takes time. (Question: He's almost Michael Jordan?) He's not far." - coach Vincent Collet on Wembanyama
Quick notes
France are the first host to win the opening game of the Olympics since Greece (76-54 vs Australia in 2004)
France have now won 14 of their last 15 games in the Olympics when leading at halftime
Victor Wembanyama is the second player under 21 years of age with more than 18 points and more than 8 rebounds in his debut game at the Olympics (since 1972). The first one was Drazen Petrovic (21pts, 9reb vs Germany in 1984)
Marcelinho Huertas is the third player with 10+ points while being older than 40. Jose Ortiz did it with Puerto Rico in 2004 (13pts vs Greece), Luis Scola did it three times with Argentina at the last Olympics
FIBA