France vs Germany Prediction: Home advantage to help Germans

There are two big announcements on Day 1 of the European Basketball Championship. After the match between Slovenians and Lithuanians, the French and German teams will face off. Can the Germans win on their home court?  

France finished 12th at the last EuroBasket, but has won top tournament medals twice in a row since then. They followed a World Championship bronze medal with a silver at the Olympics, knocking out the Slovenians on their way to the Tokyo-2021 finals. Now the French squad is far from optimal: one of the main protagonists of the Games, Nicolas Batum, is not in the lineup. Frank Ntilikina will not play due to injury, but at the last minute, coach still took Moustapha Fall at the European Championship. Rudy Gober and Evan Fournier remain key players of the team, as well as Theo Maledon and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot from NBA. Vincent Poirier, Guerschon Yabusele, and Elie Okobo also recently played in the league, so even with losses, the roster looks good.

Over the summer, Vincent Collet's players had 4 World Cup qualifying matches, unexpectedly suffering 2 defeats. In July, the French were defeated by Montenegro (69-70), and recently they lost in two overtime periods to Bosnia and Herzegovina (90-96). The team had weak shooting from beyond the arc, with Fournier and Yabusele fouling out for the rest of the team, who had a combined nine long-range shots. The opponent gave the French little room to maneuver under the basket, and Gobert wasn't very useful on offense. Fournier was the most productive player on the team with 24 points, making only 1 of 6 two-pointers and making up for it with 6 three-pointers.

German squad has been unable to win top tournaments medals for 17 years, although in recent years they put together a very decent squad. Only two NBA players made it to the Tokyo Olympics, and even then Isaac Bonga and Moritz Wagner weren't their clubs' leaders, to put it mildly. Now Franz has arrived to replace Moritz, who last season was a contender for the NBA Best Rookie title and was very nearly the leader of Orlando. Dennis Schroder and Daniel Theis are on the roster as well, although the latter's participation in the EuroBasket was initially questioned. Most likely the starting five of the Europeans will include Nick Weiler-Babb and Johannes Voigtmann who played 20 games for CSKA in the previous Euroleague season, averaging 8.5 points.

Gordie Herbert's men played their best game of the season in summer, winning all 4 World Championship rounds and securing a spot in the top tournaments. In the game with the Polish (93-83) Dennis Schroder scored 38 points, though his statistics were more modest. Last time the German national team defeated the Slovenians, 90-71. The Germans won the fight on a foreign backboard while skillfully blocking the ball movement on defense. Schroder didn't play his best basketball, hitting only 6 of 15 shots from the field, while Franz Wagner was more effective with 16 points.

Over the past seven or so years, the teams have played eight head-to-head encounters, the French winning six. In the EuroBasket qualifying, the teams have exchanged home wins, and in the last meeting, the Germans lost with a score of 74-86. Back then, the rosters of the opponents were different from the current ones, and there was a different coach working with the German national team at that time. 

• France won 10 of the last 12 matches;
• Germany won 4 of the last 5 home matches;
• France scored no less than 90 points in the last 4 matches.

The French national team traditionally plays well on defense, and the Germans will have an even harder time against them than against the Slovenians. France has a dimensional center Rudy Gobert, collecting 20 rebounds against him will not work. On the other hand, the German squad was bolstered by the arrival of Daniel Theis, who is also capable of shooting from beyond the arc and stretching the defense. We suggest betting on the following outcomes:

• H2 (+4.5) for 2.00;
• Total Under (160.5) for 1.98;
• W2 (incl. OT) for 3.015.

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