Team USA appeared to be cruising along in the FIBA World Cup. Then came Lithuania.
A 110-104 loss on Sunday didn’t knock Team USA out of the tournament but it made the favorites look quite vulnerable. Team USA’s athleticism couldn’t overcome Lithuania’s size and power. The U.S. was outrebounded by 16 and got outscored 17-2 on second-chance points.
A slow start — which has been characteristic of this group — was another issue. Team USA trailed 31-12 after the first quarter and never recovered.
As the final score would indicate, Team USA’s defense was shredded by the star-less Lithuanians. While Lithuania has some familiar faces, including Jonas Valanciunas and Ignas Brazdeikis, it was alarming to see the United States team allow 52.8% shooting overall and 56% on threes. Lithuania had nine players score at least nine points.
The biggest concern coming into the tournament for Team USA was a general lack of size. Jaren Jackson Jr., who has spent most of his NBA career as a power forward, has been starting at center. He quickly got into foul trouble on Sunday and coach Steve Kerr had even smaller options when he went to his bench. The only true center on the roster, Walker Kessler, played six minutes.
Even so, with the likes of Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Austin Reaves and Tyrese Haliburton, you’d expect Team USA to overcome its size issues.
There’s no more margin for error with the quarterfinals against Italy looming on Tuesday. If Team USA advances, it would face Germany or Latvia in the semifinals.
On the other side of the bracket, the quarterfinal matches include Lithuania vs. Serbia and Canada vs. Slovenia.
That leads us to today’s topic: Do you feel Team USA will prevail in the World Cup despite Sunday’s loss? If not, which team is your pick to win it?
Please take to the comments section to weigh in on this topic. We look forward to your input.
This reminds me of the popular quote Herb Brooks would say frequently “You don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.” This isn’t an issue entirely the way the media paints it giving the US the excuse that the rest of the world caught up. No, if the US built a true team of players instead of an allstar team and the players wanted it enough there should be no threat of the US losing.
Disagree , the worlds caught up , and that’s just fine
The rest of the world hasn’t caught up yet. Everyone else sent their A-Team, we sent our B-Team.
I guess Domantas Sabonis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokić and many other foreign NBA players aren’t good enough to play for their respective countries then.
That American denial and sore loser attitude is always good for a laugh.
Have you seriously looked at each roster and come to the conclusion that the US sent a true team of its best players? That’s exactly the point here. these other countries didn’t “catch up” because the US team isn’t composed of the country’s best.
Missing Domantas Sabonis, Lithuania has exactly ONE NBA player in Jonas Valanciunas on its roster, while the U.S. features exclusively NBA starters, among them stars like Tyrese Haliburton and ROY Paolo Banchero.
The fact that foreign players have won all NBA MVP awards over the past five years should serve as a hint that the U.S. doesn’t possess a monopoly on the sport any longer.
You know what they say about that river in Egypt.
I’m not one to care all that much about patriotism when it comes to basketball. I’ll fully admit that the best four players in the league being Jokic, Giannis, Embiid and Luka weren’t born in the USA. Honestly though, are you going to tell me though that a team made up of Curry, Booker, LeBron, Durant and Adebayo wouldn’t obliterate any other countries best starting 5?
Woulda, shoulda, coulda… keep crying.
Maybe have U.S. NBA starters beat a bunch of EuroLeague guys from a country with a population of 2.8 million first before making any megalomaniacal predictions.
I am not sure why you think people are “crying” that disagree with you I’d rather watch pretty much any team play in the World Cup other than the USA.
With that said it’s pretty obvious that quite a few teams don’t have their country’s best playing, The whole tournament is spurious data,
You have to look at the entire rosters, not just the guys you’ve heard of.
The fact we don’t respect the rest of the world’s basketball play gives those teams the extra oomph and more they need.
We came back from deep behind in almost every game we have played and won inside the last 2 minutes.
They were exactly playing like they have been trained to play since their AAU days.
Go about half speed until about 8 minutes to go and then turn on the Jets and win.
They don’t realize how unconscious they are with it.
We can’t get by with our speed against the strong senior national teams. They take the hop right out of the legs and make you play basketball.
All forget that the US almost didn’t make the medal round in the Olympics. Durant and Levine is why we won. Everyone else played their role. We struggled in the Olympics.
It’s not that the world has caught up as much as we are not near strong enough to pull off our arrogant ways of believing we can just turn it on and run teams off when we need to.
At some point you have to put your head down and play basketball in methodical purposeful ways vs out athlete everyone basketball.
The ladder does not work in the FIBA’S world like all think.
It is that simple.
The idea in sports that players wanting it enough = winning is tired. Are you telling us the guys who took time out of their summers to play for Team USA when many others did not want to are phoning it in? Then why even bother? Sure, they may not be playing at the same intensity of a Game 7 in a playoff series—that’s fair criticism—but to act as if they were treating this like an inconsequential regular season matchup isn’t fair either.
Significant lack of experience and familiarity between players. A few glaring weaknesses that are especially exposed in international play. Not enough moving the ball around. The inherent variance of threes making any team beatable on any given day (case in point, Lithuania shot 56% from three). Not being used to a more physical game thanks to the NBA’s softer play (and which also serves to negate some of its athleticism advantages). The better question is why folks are still surprised when Team USA loses from time to time.
In the NBA, when a team has a lot of new parts to integrate, early struggles are usually waved off as an adjustment period. If those teams are afforded such an understanding, then why isn’t Team USA to a degree?
USA team is beatable any day.
The US situation in international basketball is not bad, and its better than it was earlier in this century. We now have a good system, we just need a somewhat higher participation rate (particularly in non-Olympic years).
That said, the troubles of the 2019 FIBA team were real, and this one may have some of the same ones. They are certainly not the result of other countries catching up. They revolve around the US team playing more and more the new age NBA style of basketball, and expecting the officiating to reward it. Other countries are still playing the international game, which is all most of their players and coaches know, and its all most of the officials know as well. To be clear, the international game isn’t foreign. It’s the game we taught the world years ago, and have since dispensed with in the name of entertainment.
The NBA-ization of the national team might have been inevitable (since we’re using NBA players). If so, the US fans will just have to grin and bear it; no biggie, we might win anyway. Not even sure it can be mitigated by different coaching, but certainly a staff of Kerr, Spo, Lue and Few isn’t ideal for that purpose.
USA top 12 players as a team. Should be better than any team in the world. No matter if they send their fourth team. The world is catching up. But no one has the talent we do. They may have two top players. But not 12.
But like all underdogs. You play your best as a TEAM. It’s a team game. And if you got enough talent. You will compete as a team. And you can win as a team. In a tournament you only need to be hot, good. For a couple of wks. So you have teams with legit shots. Especially if we don’t play well.
The world hasn’t caught up yet. But if has made big strides. They don’t fear us like they used to.