PARIS — France was the official opponent; Team USA, its own worst enemy. One of the two? The Americans could overcome. But both? That’s a tough road. And against an eager, home-crowd-boosted team like France, it sure looked like the U.S. picked a bad game to have a bad game.
And then, it somehow got worse. After, arguably, the worst half of basketball the U.S. women have played on a world stage in the (now) 61-game win streak, France jumped out to an 8-0 run to start the second half and any assurance of “It’s Team USA, of course, they’ll be fine, of course, they’re going to come out different in the second half,” dissipated as fast as any of the cushions the Americans tried to build through the game.