There were rumors that Spain’s men’s basketball team purposely lost their final preliminary game to Brazil so that they could play France in the first round of the knockout stage. Though such a strategy would be in violation of the Olympic spirit (intentionally losing is not cool–just ask the women’s badminton players who were kicked out for it), we’ll never know Spain’s true intentions.
What we do know is that Spain defeated France in a hard-fought game today, knocking the French out of the tournament.
And we know that France’s Nicolas Batum didn’t take the loss too well. In fact, he threw a tantrum on the court and punched a Spanish player, Juan-Carlos Navarro, in the balls.
Take a look at this low blow:
The punch sparked a minor brawl at the end of the game, but nothing significant came of it. Spain is moving on and France is going home.
Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski talked to Batum after the game and asked him why he did it:
I asked Nicolas Batum why he hit Juan-Carlos Navarro in the groin. “I wanted to give him a good reason to flop,” Batum said.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) August 8, 2012
Finally, I asked Batum if he felt like his punch ultimately gave Navarro a ‘good reason’ to flop. “I hope so,” Batum said.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) August 8, 2012
