Nikola Jokic beat Victor Wembanyama on Thursday night in Belgrade. They do it again at noon Eastern on Sunday, in France this time, and the whole thing costs about five dollars to watch.
Serbia won 90-87 in a sold-out Belgrade Arena. Jokic had 20 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Wembanyama, in his first game as France's captain and his first appearance for Les Bleus since the Paris Olympics, was held to 10 points on 1-of-6 shooting from three — though he did block Jokic in the first half, which almost nobody does.
How to watch
France vs. Serbia — Sunday, Aug. 23, noon ET, CO'Met Arena, Orleans
Georgia vs. Israel — Sunday, Aug. 23, 11:15 a.m. ET
Both stream in the United States on Courtside 1891 through DAZN. You do not need a full DAZN subscription; Courtside 1891 is sold separately, and entry has been running around five dollars. In France, both friendlies are free-to-air on La Chaine L'Equipe. The Courtside 1891 feed is available globally outside France and the ex-Yugoslav territories.
The market thinks Belgrade was a fluke
This is the strange part, and it is worth two minutes of your morning.
Serbia won. Then the betting line moved toward France — and kept moving. FanDuel opened the rematch with France favored by 4.5. It briefly touched 3.5 on Friday. By Sunday morning it had swung all the way to France -6.5, with the moneyline out to -320 and the total up to 172.5.
That is a roughly ten-point swing on a game that just happened, between the same twenty players, seventy-two hours apart.
The reasoning is not complicated. France turned the ball over 22 times and still lost by three. Wembanyama shot 1-for-6 from distance and had a team-high six turnovers. A packed Belgrade crowd is worth real points, and on Sunday that crowd belongs to France. Clean up the giveaways, get a normal night from the best young player alive, flip the building, and the number makes sense.
Serbia would like a word. They led by twelve inside the final three minutes and nearly gave it back on missed free throws. Nikola Milutinov's 15 points on jump shooting is what actually held them up. Aleksa Avramovic finished with 13 points, five assists and three steals, and then stretched out to block Sylvain Francisco's game-tying three in the closing seconds.
Amine Noua led France with 14, outscoring the captain. Gerald Ayayi added 10 and a game-high four steals. Both teams looked like teams that had not played together in a year.
Jokic, on whether an exhibition matters: "A good friend of ours says there are no friendly games, only preparation games."
He also declined the rivalry framing entirely, calling Wembanyama a unique opponent and saying he has a chance to be the most unique player the sport has seen. Not the kind of thing you say about someone you are trying to beat twice in four days.
Orleans, and the other Orleans
Here is the part that belongs to us.
The city hosting Sunday's game is the one that gave New Orleans its name. La Nouvelle-Orleans was founded in 1718 and named for Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, then regent of France. Three hundred and eight years later, two of the best basketball players alive are playing an exhibition in the original.
And Louisiana has been busy this week. On Friday, Kade Anderson made his major league debut for Seattle — Slidell, Madisonville, Covington, Baton Rouge, LSU, the whole ring around Lake Pontchartrain, in a place that exists because a French duke's title got carried across an ocean.
That is what these names do. They travel, they land somewhere else, and three centuries later a kid from the parish next door throws a slider in a big league park while the city he is named after hosts Jokic and Wembanyama.
Serbia plays our game too, incidentally. Last year the country hosted a European Baseball Championship qualifier and lost the final 11-1 to Hungary, who went on to Rotterdam for the finals at Neptunus Familiestadion. So on Thursday night the loudest basketball crowd in Europe was standing in a country with a baseball federation, a qualifying tournament it has already hosted, and no realistic route to Los Angeles in 2028. Two sports, one flag, and only one of them built a road that goes somewhere.
The game before it is the better story
Georgia plays Israel at 11:15 a.m. ET, and the two countries are perfectly inverted.
In basketball, Georgia is 20th in the world with a World Cup appearance and its best-ever EuroBasket finish. Israel sits near the bottom of the 24 teams left in European qualifying,
without Deni Avdija.
In baseball, reverse it. Israel reached the second round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic and played in the Tokyo Olympics. Georgia has a federation, a WBSC Europe membership, and a world ranking of NR — not ranked.
Same two countries, same Sunday morning, two sports that completely disagree about which one is the developing nation.
What happens next
Qualifying resumes Thursday. France hosts Slovenia on Aug. 27 and travels to Sweden on the 30th. Serbia hosts Iceland on the 28th, then goes to Pesaro to face Italy on Aug. 31.
Circle that last one. Italy went 5-0 at the World Baseball Classic in March and reached the semifinals before losing to Venezuela — and is still not qualified for the 2028 Olympics, because none of it counted toward Los Angeles. On Aug. 31, they get Jokic.
Odds via FanDuel, accurate as of Sunday morning and subject to movement. No player props were posted for either friendly, which is standard for exhibitions.