Sweden has been hit with basketball fever thanks to the men's national team's progress in the World Cup qualifiers. The match with France had to be moved from Hovet to Avicii Arena due to the large crowd pressure - and Sweden made sure to raise the temperature even further on Thursday with an away game against Finland.
Much of the pre-match talk was, of course, about the meeting with French megastar Victor Wembanyama, 224 centimeters tall.
But once the game started, the brightest NBA star on the court was Swedish, just like in Helsinki last time.
Pelle Larsson scored 31 points then and continued on the same path in front of his home fans in Stockholm. The Miami star both dunked and shot three-pointers. But above all, Larsson repeatedly drove to the basket and forced the French defenders to foul him.
“We are close”
Already at halftime, Larsson had shot ten points from the free-throw line - and 18 in total - but after a good French finish, it was still “only” 38-38 at halftime.
Larsson faltered after his tremendous first half. But Sweden continued to keep pace with the silver medalists from the Paris Olympics for a long time.
"We're having an incredible match. We're showing that we're close, we're involved pretty much the entire match until the last few minutes. Defensively we're doing very well, offensively it's tough against these big bodies," Ludvig Håkanson told SVT after the match.
Bobi Klintman was mostly on the bench in the first half, after early foul trouble, but came on and scored six points in the third period. So did Håkanson, who with two close three-pointers ensured that the score was almost even, 54-55, heading into the final period.
Viktor Gaddefors had a great game and fought back with two points plus a free throw for the Swedish lead 65-64, with just over five minutes left.
14,750 spectators almost caused the roof to lift on the white globe.
But then the fun ended.
The World Cup dream is alive
France had a couple of red-hot minutes that culminated with Wembanyama sending in a three-pointer to give the away team a 72-65 lead. Sweden took a timeout, but could never get back up.
Team captain Ludvig Håkanson doesn't think the final score, 69-84, tells the whole story.
"We play as a team and that's what I said to the team after the game, that this result does not reflect the game. We are close against one of the best teams in the world. We just have to keep going," says Håkanson.
With four matches remaining, Sweden's World Cup dream is still alive. Qualifying continues against Hungary (home) and France (away) at the end of November.
