OLYM - Bleus hit top form

LONDON (Olympics) - France's fortunes at the Olympics have changed a lot in the space of four days.

After a lackluster, spirit-less performance in a 98-71 loss to the United States on the opening day of the men's tournament, Les Bleus have surprised Argentina and, for the second year in a row, shot down Lithuania in a very important game.

The French beat Argentina 71-64 on Tuesday and in Thursday's 9am game, they hit back from a 43-39 deficit at half-time to win 82-74.

When Nicolas Batum, Tony Parker and the rest of France walked off the court and prepared to return to the Olympic Village, sun had broken through the London clouds.

France are 2-1 in Group A and have underdogs Tunisia coming up next on Saturday.

Everyone knows the importance of Batum and Parker to the French cause.

After indifferent starts to the Olympics, both played like NBA All-Stars against Lithuania.

Batum was at his high-flying best, swatting three shots and scoring 21 points and Parker poured in a game-high 27 points.

The goggles Parker has to wear following last month's eye operation did not appear to be bother him for the first time.

The biggest issue for the San Antonio Spurs superstar is that his legs weren’t tired.

He made nine of 14 shots from the floor, including two of three from long range.

"I am feeling better and better," Parker said.

"I feel like I've found my legs again, but in the last game (against Argentina) I was already feeling better.

"I felt like the shots I was taking would go in.

"Today I felt in rhythm, I tried to be aggressive but patient without getting frustrated and wanting to do too much."

Parker is the talisman of France, the engine for the team, so when he's playing well, it's good news for Les Bleus.

But he is not a one-man team.

Boris Diaw had eight assists to go with his 10 points, and both Mickael Gelabale and Nando de Colo contributed eight points.

Gelabale virtually wrote off the last club season after getting hurt while playing for France at the EuroBasket 2011.

"I'm 100% and happy to be in shape," Gelabale said.

"To play in this tournament is the best in the world.

"I didn't play last season, so when I play with the national team with all my friends, we know each other, we have a great feeling and they give me confidence."

There is so much flair in the French team that their ability to play defense is sometimes overlooked.

It was their defense, Parker says, that allowed them to beat the Baltic side.

"I told my team mates at half-time, if we don't defend we won't win," Parker said.

"If we don't defend against Lithuania and we let them settle and score easy lay-ups, score three-pointers.

"Forty-three points is too much if we want to keep Lithuania under 70 points.

"This was our aim in the second half, we defended better and we circulated the ball better."

Collet agreed that the defensive part of France's game clicked after the break.

"Fortunately, at the start of the third quarter, we put more pressure on the ball and they had to hesitate," he said.

"The way we broke their timing helped us to get better control of their one-on-one situation."

Collet says that France are looking to finish second in Group A behind the United States and their chances look very good of achieving that, now.

Their remaining games are against Tunisia and Nigeria and Nicolas Batum says France must stay focused and ensure a good pairing for the quarters.

"We do not want to do another 2010 where we had a good performance against Spain but lost it all against Lithuania," he explains.

"Here we pulled off a good win against Argentina and we have managed to beat Lithuania, now we must remain concentrated.

"I think the experience of 2010 taught us a lot and we know we must stay focused for the last two games to finish the work and set up a good position coming into the Quarter-Finals."

Not all was good news for France.

Their combative forward, Florent Pietrus, suffered a suspected broken nose and may have been lost for the rest of the Olympic Games.

FIBA