With its win on Saturday over Puerto Rico, Team USA clinched the top seed entering the quarterfinals of the men’s basketball tournament at the Olympics and will face Brazil in the first game of the single-elimination portion of the event on Tuesday.
According to head coach Steve Kerr, Jrue Holiday will be ready to go on Tuesday after not playing against Puerto Rico on Saturday, tweets Marc J. Spears of Andscape. Holiday was ruled out due to an ankle injury, but it sounds like the issue is relatively minor.
At least one or two stars on the U.S. roster were DNP-CDs in each of the club’s first two games, so not having Holiday active allowed all 11 other players to see the floor on Saturday. Anthony Edwards led the way with a team-high 26 points on 11-of-15 shooting, while five other Americans scored in the double-digits.
Here are a few more Olympic notes:
- While they’ve been somewhat overshadowed at the Olympics by teams with more NBA players or more recognizable stars, the Germans are the reigning World Cup champs and went undefeated in their three pool-play games, with a point differential (+47) that ranks second behind Team USA. Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews.com lays out the reasons why Germany remains a serious medal threat, starting with rising star Franz Wagner.
- Canada faced a tough lineup of games in pool play, but after registering wins over Australia, Spain, and Greece, head coach Jordi Fernandez believes those challenging first-round matchups better equipped his team for what’s to come. “We’ve played with a Game 7 mentality because we played the toughest pool in the Olympics,” Fernandez said. “We’re more prepared than other teams who probably had big leads. We haven’t had those big leads, and even at times when we had them, these teams were so competitive that came back. I like where we’re at. This ‘group of death’ will help us be more prepared for the quarterfinals.”
- Australia went just 1-2 in the so-called group of death, but their point differential was strong enough to earn them a spot in the quarterfinals. Olgun Uluc of ESPN shares his takeaways from the Boomers’ performance through three games and considers what areas they’ll need to improve to have a shot at a medal. On the plus side, Dyson Daniels has been a revelation so far this summer, Uluc writes — in addition to handling the most challenging defensive assignment on the perimeter, the Hawks guard has averaged 11.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per game with a .417 3PT%.