Team USA has one Olympic loss already and now that the medal round is here, another defeat would end its gold medal hopes. The Americans will face Spain in the quarterfinals and Celtics forward Jayson Tatum could be the key to advancing, writes Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
Spain captured the FIBA World Cup in 2019, but Tatum played in just two games after being injured early in the tournament. He’s fully healthy now and has gotten over a slow start in the Olympics, scoring 27 points in Saturday’s rout of the Czech Republic.
“Our confidence never wavered,” said Tatum, whose team lost a pair of exhibition games in Las Vegas, then dropped its Olympic opener against France. “We understood that it wasn’t gonna be easy. We didn’t have our full team until four days ago, five days ago, so we knew that we had a lot of challenges ahead of us. And we also know that we would continue to get better every day. We would get better from each game, each practice, just the more time that we spent together, we were never going to be the same team, from day one, that we are now. And hopefully, we’re better this time next week than we were today.”
There’s more from Tokyo:
- Kevin Durant reached a milestone Saturday, passing Carmelo Anthony as Team USA’s all-time leading scorer in Olympic competition, Vardon adds in a separate story. Durant, who is seeking his third gold medal, now has 354 total points. “It is special to do something like that,” he said. “Scoring is something I worked on my whole career and something I’ve expanded my whole career, and being able to consistently do it is pretty cool.”
- The U.S. didn’t have a pure point guard until Jrue Holiday joined the team, says Jim Souhan of The Star Tribune. Holiday was busy with the playoffs during training camp and exhibition play and didn’t leave for Japan until after the Bucks’ championship parade. “His entry onto the team, late as it was, has had an immediate effect, because he garners so much respect from his teammates,” coach Gregg Popovich said.
- After undergoing surgery for a stress fracture in his left foot, Pau Gasol was determined not to let it end his career, writes Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. The 41-year-old has battled back and is playing an important role for Spain. “I love the game,” Gasol said. “I wanted to finish my career playing. I had such an incredible, extraordinary career that I didn’t want the injury to finish it for me.”
Not related but I’ve seen better 3 x 3 basketball in the park than I saw in the Olympics the other day. What a horrible new event
Spoken like a true hater
Hate it is then……. looked like park games on Saturday up in Salt Lake City , no shizz
I thought my channel skipped to ESPN the Ocho or something on accident. Im all for some of the new sports, skateboarding was a blast but that was embarrassing Imo
* No hate on Salt Lake, Mormons are ballers for those who don’t know, have hoops elevated in about 90% of there indoor churches if ya look up
Hard to know the int’l politics but calling it 3v3 would have been a better start. Or… sand. Haha but it worked for volleyball!
USA can’t lose to Spain. They are getting old and not the power they once were. Luka and Slovenia just beat them. USA stays on point and focused. Plays as a team to win. They should win gold.
I think the Olympic team should all be young guys and they should have someone like Jay Wright coach the team. Get commitments barring injury that they’ll play for the next x years, and work to actually build a team. This superstars thrown together thing isn’t going to work now that the rest of the world has just about caught up to us.
That’s what Colangelo would want… but is not practical, so he is always out of step with events.
NBC wants you to only care about who wears the ‘USA’. It is hard to decide otherwise on your own. Often they make good heavies. The lesson should be, if you’re the heavy, it is hard not to be, and not even the best plan to pretend otherwise. But that is not what NBC wants if you wear ‘USA’.
Pau plays so far better ball in this Olympics than his younger brother.
Once he retires PAU GASOL’S first move will be to buy
an “L” !!
It’s gonna be one “L” of an accomplishment !!
Seems clear to me that Adebayo is not playing with the physical joy he used to have, having to play back-to-the-basket as a center. When he busted loose as a forward circa 2019 his whole team stepped forward.
There is a type of logic that says, if a player is big enough to do the hard stuff, he should be made to stay there doing it.
That is Riley-level dreaming, making room for more stars, not getting the most from a max-paid star. Bam’s stats are fine, 19-9-5.4, and he holds up now, but is hardly inspirational.
The Bucks let Giannis ramble and put an old center on the floor too. GA was not that good with the ball but we saw the payoff in these last finals… GA could do what it took to get a title, controlling the court, not just the paint. The Cavs have a similar decision to make with Mobley. Actually this post is about Mobley; the courses of GA and Bam have been set.