By Only Players Staff
Updated 8/5/24 5:11am ET
After winning and covering all three games to win its group, Germany opens the Olympic men’s basketball quarterfinals against Giannis Antetokounmpo and Greece. The Greeks only won one game in group play.
Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock
Automated transcript is below. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Olympic men’s basketball group play is done. It’s now time for the knockout rounds or the medal rounds. It all begins with the quarterfinals. Losing you’re done. Win three straight and the gold medal is yours.
First quarterfinal I want to discuss is Greece, of course led by Giannis Antetokounmpo against Germany, which has been so good this Olympics. Three and and three and against the spread.
Speaking of the spread, it’s eight. Opened around seven. That got a little actions of Germany now eight over under 161 and a half for this game. That’s a tips off Tuesday, 5 am Eastern. So obviously a Tuesday later in the day game in Paris. I like Germany here. Greece has been fine. They lost their first two games, almost went home, but they did have a nice win in their group play finale. Is their ceiling pretty high? It is, but they just have not been able to put together four full quarters.
Giannis is excellent, but he has limitations. And those are almost pronounced in international rules because there’s no defensive three seconds. So teams can sag on him, force him to shoot and there’s more physicality. Not that he’s shy from physicality, but he’s not going to get all the fouls. Defenders can be rougher with him. And clearly he’s been limited, not stopped, but bothered and limited and teams are one and two against him. So, but they get into the knockout round. Germany has been awesome. Really surprising.
Just to put this in perspective, they came into the tournament,30 to one long shots to win the gold medal. They’re now eight to one, the second favorite with Canada. Both are eight to one. So it just gives you some perspective how much Germany has surpassed expectations. They have the Wagner brothers and Dennis Schroder at point who’s been great so far. He does have his flashes when he plays the NBA. He also has a pretty low floor, but to keep this in mind, if you’re to lay points in any of these games, point differential doesn’t matter. Like it doesn’t group play. So you might not get a cheap cover at the end with a basket where as you’re, likely to get the dribble out like we often see in the NBA.
If the Germans advance, they get the winner of France -Canada. Canada is also favored by about seven or eight, so it should be an awesome semifinal if we get there, but I do like the Germans to take care of Giannis in Greece.
