Victor Wembanyama stats: How did French center perform vs Japan in Olympic basketball game?

Les Bleus and Victor Wembanyama played a hard-fought game against Japan on Tuesday in their second game of the Group Phase for the 2024 Paris Olympics. After a dominant 78-66 win over Brazil in their opening game of the Group Phase on Jul. 27, Wembanyama and France went down to the wire against Japan on Tuesday.

The team jumped out to an early lead, winning the first quarter 32-25, before Japan outscored France 19-17 in the second quarter. After the half, the two teams both put up 20-point third quarters, with France entering the fourth quarter with a slight lead.

In the fourth, Japan managed to outscore France 20-15, largely thanks to NBA forward Rui Hachimura, who ended up getting ejected midway through the quarter. After Matthew Strazel converted on an and-one from three with just seconds left to go in the game, the two teams headed to overtime.

There, Victor Wembanyama shined, erupting for eight points in the five-minute overtime period to give France a narrow 94-90 win. Thanks to their play, Les Bleus have now extended their record to 2-0 in the Group Phase of play since the start of the Olympic action on Saturday.

Below, you can see Wembanyama's full stats from throughout the game.

Player	Pts	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO
Victor Wembanyama	18	11	6	2	2	2

How Victor Wembanyama has performed in recent games for France

Victor Wembanyama's double-double on Tuesday was his first in the Olympics. Wembanyama finished his Olympic debut against Brazil as one of the game's leading scorers with 19 points, along with Nic Batum.

In addition to his 19 points, the San Antonio Spurs star also notably logged nine rebounds, two assists, four steals and three blocks. The win snapped a four-game skid for France, which saw the team hit a dry spell leading up to the Paris Olympics.

While they won their first two international friendly games, beating Turkiye and Germany, who entered the Olympics as the reigning FIBA World Cup champions, they then fell to Germany in a closely-contested rematch on Jul. 8, before falling to FIBA World Cup runners-up Serbia on Jul. 12.

While fans were concerned following a Jul. 19 loss to Canada, who finished third in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, and Australia, who failed to medal, Victor Wembanyama wasn't worried.

As he explained in a virtual press conference alongside Rudy Gobert leading up to the Olympics, he would rather the team struggle leading up to the Olympics than in the Group Phase.

With a 2-0 record heading into a highly-anticipated match with Germany on Aug. 2, it appears as though Victor Wembanyama and Les Bleus could be favorites to emerge from Group B after their latest win.