LeBron James, after all, elected to stay home this time around. Pacific against Manu Ginobili, Andres “Chapu” Nocioni and Argentina, the last team to knock US out of an global tournament back in 2004.
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But still, it’s not like we sent a bunch of scrubs down to Rio. He entered with 11 points on 4-for-26 shooting in the first four games. The Americans previously tasted defeat in the semifinals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship against Greece and launched this streak on September 2, 2006, with a 96-81 victory over Argentina in the bronze-medal game in Japan.
Fourth quarter, 6:41, 83-77 USA: This one is getting good again. The Olympic favorites topped Australia by 10 points on Wednesday, but only after they trailed at halftime. Australia pushed Mike Krzyzewski’s crew a bit, but the Boomers are probably the second-best unit in the Olympics.
Despite the dominance in the Rio Olympics, many people are still not satisfied with the way they played against their opponents.
The 94-91 win over Serbia on Friday was the USA’s narrowest Olympic escape since they settled for bronze in 2004 at Athens.
However, it was after that game that things began to go off the rails. “Even with [Thompson] going off and making all those tough shots, we still had a chance to win”.
“To start out (heading into the Olympics), I thought personally that we were going to dominate; these games were going to come easy”, the Indiana Pacers star said with a laugh after the Americans downed France 100-97 on Sunday. Durant was a flawless 4-of-4 from the field for nine points in the first quarter. Draymond Green was held scoreless, grabbed 3 rebounds, dished two assists, and made some uncharacteristic defensive mistakes down the stretch. That’s the good news. Perhaps most importantly, though, is the team basketball U.S. is playing.
“We’ve obviously had three close games in a row by our standards”, Kevin Durant said.
DeRozan (USC 2009) scored nine points and added an assist, steal and rebound for Team USA, which saw its 12-point lead through three quarters whittled away in the final frame.
“We knew kind of what we wanted to do today, and I think in every single area that we had marked down that we wanted to get accomplished, we got accomplished today”, said Auriemma.
Even more worrisome: it’s not like the team is being plagued by one weakness. Wins over Australia and Serbia were claimed in disjointed, grinding fashion.
“We all know what it takes to win in the playoffs”, Durant said.
Serbia doesn’t boast much National Basketball Association talent, but its chemistry is obvious. Krzyzewski restored Thompson to the starting lineup after giving that spot to Paul George, which certainly didn’t hurt. It was down just 85-81 in the fourth quarter, and even after the USA extended the lead to 93-83, France made it 100-94 with 31 seconds left.
As CBS Sports’ Matt Moore pointed out, this edition of Team USA has slipped considerably compared to its predecessors. 32 of its 35 field goals came off assists. It’s their effort against Serbia in the very next game that was more worrisome. Durant allowed Nicolas Batum and others to cut backdoor on him multiple times. Kyrie Irving led the way with 15 points. Opponents have realized that DeMarcus Cousins has no interest in stepping up on pick-and-rolls and are taking advantage. We can outscore teams.
More than a tinge of angst surrounds the US, but the rest of the field still considers the Americans the favorite to win gold. “We’ve got to lock up, and we will”. That approach gave Thompson space for easy makes early, stockpiling confidence for a second half splash fest. There certainly are several top American stars who aren’t here, but it should be an official International Olympic Committee rule: No one who plays, coaches or roots for Team USA is ever allowed to complain about what the roster might be missing.
No nation faces a more daunting task than fourth-seeded Japan, who will try to end the Americans’ 46-game Olympic winning run that dates back to the 1992 Barcelona Games. He pointed out that the team is lacking ball movements and their defense should be improved. Then, they followed that performance with a near-collapse against Serbia.
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The off-court camaraderie that this group has developed appears authentic, as players have repeatedly discussed the bonds that have been formed in less than a month. Those are all fantastic individual offensive players, but they need to start swinging the rock around if they want to start rolling as a team again. Maybe it’s a mixture of all of the above. France will put up a fight, but expect the United States of America to pull of another hard earned win. And for all of Jokic’s promise, it’s been Miroslav Raduljica to do the bulk of the frontcourt scoring, averaging 19.2 points per game in group play to go with his borderline-dirty brand of physical defense. Team USA has nearly been knocked out three times over the past week.
