Paris 2024 Paralympics: Great Britain and the U.S. win spots in the wheelchair basketball gold-medal game 

Great Britain and the United States each won semi-finals by large margins in the men’s wheelchair basketball tournament at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, setting up an exciting gold medal match-up.

Great Britain earned their spot in the semi-final with a blowout over Germany. ParalympicsGB won by the score of 71-43 on Thursday in Paris. Gregg Warburton had 35 points – half of Britain’s score – to lead his team to the win. The British team has had an impressive run through Paris, winning every game by at least 20 points.

"I have to give some massive shout-outs to my teammates. I started off relatively slow, missed some good shots. I tried to stick to the game plan, and it came to fruition in the end,” Warburton said after the win.

"Defensively, we were as good as we've been. Our mentality coming into this was to be as horrible to play against as we were in the past. We tried to go back to our defensive principles, and that showed today: keeping a world-class team to 40-something points. That's where our win comes from today - our defence."

Making it to the semi-final means that Great Britain will improve on their finish in the last two Paralympics. They won bronze at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. The last time Great Britain was in a gold medal game in men’s wheelchair basketball was at Atlanta 1996.

Warburton was clear on his team’s objective for Saturday’s gold-medal game.

"We came here with one job. Silver's not enough for us. We're in the gold medal game, that's what we came for. Whoever it is, whenever it is, we're ready to go."

U.S. men win big over Canada

Led by Brian Bell’s 31-point performance, the United States beat Canada 80-43 in the second semi-final on Thursday, 5 September. This puts the U.S. one win away from gold. If they can win, they will become the first wheelchair basketball team ever to win four straight gold medals

While the offensive performance was impressive, with Jake Williams adding 20 points and Steve Serio another 12, it was really the defence that stood out for the U.S. They held Canada to 43 points, shooting 18 of 55 from the field. Canada’s Patrick Anderson, a six-time Paralympian, led his team with 16 points.

The gold-medal game tips off on Saturday (7 September) at 9:30 p.m CEST, 3:30 p.m. ET. Canada and Germany will face off for bronze at 4 p.m. CEST, 10 a.m. ET.