Canada Clinches 1st World Cup Medal With Thrilling Victory Over Americans
The United States was determined to stop Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The 25-year-old Canadian had been the engine for this Canadian senior men’s national basketball team throughout the FIBA World Cup. He’d led the team to historic heights, but the Americans weren’t going to let him get any further. When he caught the ball, pressure was coming.
And yet, Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t be fazed.
As the pressure ramped up in overtime of Sunday’s bronze medal game, so too did Gilgeous-Alexander. He faked a jab step into the arc, hesitating for a moment to shake off Mikal Bridges whose ankles gave out as he fell to the ground. Then Gilgeous-Alexander released a picture-perfect three-pointer, holding his release for the cameras to catch the moment as the ball swished through the net.
Moments later, when the pressure came again, Gilgeous-Alexander calmly spun around, throwing a kick-out pass to RJ Barrett who nailed the game-deciding three-pointer as Canada knocked off the United States 127-118 to clinch the program’s first-ever World Cup medal.
All of Gilgeous-Alexander’s overtime heroic, frankly, never should have happened. Canada should have sealed the game in regulation, up four with four seconds to go. And yet, Bridges intentionally missed his second of two free throws and Canada forgot to box out the shooter. In almost Kawhi Leonard Game 7 fashion, Bridges scooped up his missed shot, ran to the corner, and nailed a turnaround three to tie the game.
It could have broken the Canadians who led for almost the entire game, twice building up double-digit leads only to see them vanish as the high-powered Americans rallied back. But if Gilgeous-Alexander was the offensive engine for Canada in the tournament, Dillon Brooks provided the mental strength for this largely inexperienced Canadian core.
Brooks was unstoppable for the Canadians all morning. It was as if the Americans forgot about him, leaving him open over and over again on the perimeter. When they did, the Mississauga native made them pay, shooting a perfect 5-for-5 from behind the arc in the first half, en route to a 39-point showing with seven made threes.
When the Americans did adjust to Brook’s three-point onslaught, the 27-year-old began attacking. He caught a kick-out pass from Gilgeous-Alexander when the United States doubled late in the fourth and bulldozed into the paint for a pair of free throws. As he did, the crowd that had once booed Brooks earlier in the tournament for his NBA antics began to change. MVP chants reigned down from the Canadian fans in Manila.
It was, in the end, the Americans who broke down late in overtime as three straight possessions ended in turnovers for the United States who desperately tried to claw back Canada’s late lead. Eventually, an unsportsmanlike foul on Bobby Portis sent Luguentz Dort to the line, and the bronze medal was clinched.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished the game with 31 points to go with a game-high 12 assists while Barrett added 23 points thanks in part to four made three-pointers.
For this Canadian team, the World Cup was nearly everything the program could have hoped for. The program clinched its first Olympic berth in over two decades and will now bring home a medal, having topped its southern rivals. There'll be no last-chance qualifier for the Olympics next summer and no 12 months of questioning what went wrong.
Instead, Canada showed that it truly is among the best in the world.
