Team USA Rallies From Halftime Deficit to Beat Australia, 98-88
Australia led Team USA for most of the first half and enjoyed a 54-49 halftime advantage before Team USA rallied in the second half to prevail, 98-88. Carmelo Anthony will be featured in most of the headlines thanks to his game-high 31 points but Team USA needed a dominant defensive effort in the concluding 20 minutes to escape with a win that was closer than the final margin might suggest. Anthony shot 11-21 from the field (including 9-15 from three point range) and he tied DeMarcus Cousins with a game-high eight rebounds. Kyrie Irving turned in another strong performance with 19 points and a team-high five assists. Anthony and Irving combined to score Team USA's first 26 points in a very competitive fourth quarter with the game on the line. Kevin Durant was Team USA's only other double figure scorer (14 points) but he shot just 4-16 from the field and did not leave his imprint on the game.
Australia's roster includes four players who have won an NBA championship and it was evident from the start that this team was not the slightest bit intimidated or awed by Team USA. Patty Mills led Australia with 30 points on 11-22 field goal shooting but he had plenty of help from three other players with NBA experience: Andrew Bogut contributed 15 points on 7-9 field goal shooting, David Andersen chipped in 13 points and Matthew Dellavedova got under the skin of multiple Team USA players while scoring 11 points and dishing a game-high 11 assists. The scrappy Dellavedova also led Australia with six rebounds, quite a feat for a small guard playing for a team that starts two quality big men.
Doug Collins aptly noted that Australia is a team that has good talent but is also better than the sum of its parts, while Team USA fielded the 12 best individual players. Team USA would not trade any of its players straight up for one of the Australians, yet Australia kept the game close by playing tough and playing with a cohesion that is wonderful to watch.
Anthony's offensive skill set is well suited to FIBA play, particularly when he plays power forward; most big FIBA forwards are too slow to check him and most smaller FIBA forwards are not strong enough to guard him in the post. Anthony is also at his best when he can just catch and shoot in one on one matchups, as opposed to having to create his own shot when the defense is tilted toward him; that is when Anthony becomes a "ball-stopper" but on Team USA he is surrounded by great talent and he has the luxury of playing one on one in favorable matchups. Anthony also loves the shorter FIBA three point line.
Anthony's 31 points are tied for the second-most by a U.S. Olympian (Anthony holds the record with
37 points in just 14 minutes versus Nigeria in the 2012 Olympics). He also surpassed LeBron James to become the leading scorer in Team USA Olympic history (293 points); that statistic is a little deceptive because Anthony has now played in four Olympics while most Team USA basketball players over the years only played in one Olympics.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski tweaked the Team USA starting lineup by inserting Paul George for Klay Thompson but the move did nothing to reverse the slow starts that have plagued Team USA. George finished with 5 points on 2-6 field goal shooting in 17 minutes, while Thompson had six points on 2-9 field goal shooting in 23 minutes. Oddly, Thompson had Team USA's best plus/minus score (14), followed by Irving (12) and Anthony (10).
Anthony opened the game with two quick three pointers to put Team USA up 6-0 but Australia took a 10-9 lead after Mills hit a three pointer. George was then whistled for a technical foul after pushing Dellavedova and Dellavedova's free throw extended the margin to 11-9. Australia was up 25-17 when Coach Krzyzewski went to his "pitbull lineup" (as Collins calls Team USA's defensive-minded second unit); by the end of the quarter, the score was tied 29-29. Anthony poured in 14 first quarter points, shooting 5-7 from the field overall and 4-5 from three point range.
A Durant three pointer gave Team USA a 32-29 lead early in the second quarter but Team USA quickly found out that Australia is not
Venezuela; instead of wilting in the second quarter like Venezuela did versus Team USA, Australia forged ahead thanks to good second unit play to complement the outstanding efforts of the starters. A Mills three pointer pushed the Australian lead to 41-36. It is important to note that by this point Team USA had shot an outstanding 8-17 (.471) from three point range; contrary to popular belief, it is neither essential for Team USA to shoot well from beyond the arc in order to win in FIBA play nor is good three point shooting a guarantee for victory if Team USA is deficient defensively. Just as fast as Anthony rained in three pointers, Team USA gave up layups and open jumpers at the other end of the court.
After Australia went up 46-39, Collins said that Australia's "screening and back-cutting" looked like a clinic. Australia led 54-49 at halftime. This was the first time that Team USA trailed at halftime during Olympic play since the infamous 89-81 loss to Argentina in the 2004 Olympics. Anthony scored 17 first half points but Mills dropped 15 for Australia while Bogut chipped in 13 points. Team USA shot 10-21 from three point range but allowed Australia to shoot a blistering 19-28 (.679) from the field overall.
During the halftime show, Fran Fraschilla stated several times that Team USA needed to make some adjustments but Dan Patrick never asked the obvious question: What adjustments should Team USA make? I would say that the biggest adjustments had to do more with concentration and effort than any specific strategy tweaks; Australia feasted on easy baskets in the first half because Team USA allowed too many cuts and did not work hard enough to contest Australia's shots.
Team USA's energy level went up a notch at the start of the third quarter, leading to a 9-0 run. Australia made just one of their first seven field goal attempts as Team USA paid better attention to detail on defense. Australia proved to be tough-minded, though, and they were not rattled by Team USA's attack. When Cousins went to the bench with his fourth foul at the 5:09 mark the score was tied 60-60. Draymond Green concluded the stanza with a fadeaway jumper plus the foul and his free throw gave Team USA a tenuous 70-67 lead.
Australia opened the fourth quarter with an Andersen three pointer and a Joe Ingles fast break layup to take a 72-70 lead. The tide turned when Team USA combined tough defense with some fine shotmaking by Anthony. Anthony tied the game at 72 with a strong drive, though he missed a free throw that could have made it a three point play. Anthony then drilled four three pointers to put Team USA on top 88-80. Australia kept battling, though, and after Irving missed a layup a long pass to Mills resulted in a fast break layup that trimmed the margin to 90-86. Irving answered with a huge three pointer from almost exactly the spot on the court where he buried the Golden State Warriors late in game seven of the 2016 NBA Finals. Australia forced a Team USA shot clock violation while down 93-88 with 36.3 seconds left but could not hit a timely shot to make it a one possession game.
Hopefully, this game will put a stop to the nonsensical talk about how boring it is to watch Team USA cruise to the gold medal or how Team USA should only use college players in the future; a Team USA squad consisting entirely of college players would have lost to Australia by at least 10 points. Australia is a wily and physical team with veteran pros who would figure out how to frustrate young college kids. There is no reason or justification for Team USA to impose artificial handicaps on itself and the game of basketball benefits as a whole when the world's best try to measure themselves against Team USA.
Labels: 2016 Olympics, 2016 Team USA, Andrew Bogut, Australia, Carmelo Anthony, David Andersen, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Patty Mills
posted by David Friedman @ 2:09 AM
Team USA Pounds Australia, 116-85
Kobe Bryant scored a game-high 25 points--the most by any American player in this year's Olympics--as Team USA defeated Australia 116-85 and moved to within two victories of winning the gold medal. LeBron James added 19 points, nine rebounds, three assists and four steals. Bryant played a team-high 26 minutes, while James played 25 minutes, five more than any other player on the squad. NBA fans get so caught up in debating whether Bryant or James is the best player in the league but the important thing right now is that the two best players in the world are on the same team and they are both playing at a very high level. Before the game, USA Network color commentator Doug Collins singled them out as the two most important players on the roster. He said, "The guy who has been the catalyst is LeBron James. He's the guy on the back line blocking shots (and also) stealing the basketball." Collins then spoke of Bryant's contributions, noting, "Defensively on the perimeter, he has taken the other team's toughest guy." People who fretted that Team USA does not have enough big men do not understand basketball in general and FIBA basketball in particular: James is big enough to be a big man in any league in the world and great defense starts with defensive pressure in the backcourt, which Bryant has supplied since he was added to the team last summer.
Carmelo Anthony (15 points on 5-9 field goal shooting), Chris Bosh (10 points on 3-4 shooting, six rebounds) and Deron Wiliams (10 points) also scored in double figures. Dwyane Wade had a quiet game offensively--eight points on 3-8 shooting--though he did get eight rebounds. Dynamic guard Patrick Mills led Australia with 20 points, while reserve Glen Saville added 13 points. Andrew Bogut had just four points before leaving in the second half after reinjuring his balky left ankle.
Team USA's game plan early in the game focused on feeding the ball to Dwight Howard in the paint and this worked to perfection as Howard drew two fouls on Bogut in the first 2:42. Team USA raced to a 12-3 lead as Howard converted a three point play, Anthony scored two baskets, Bryant made a jumper and James drilled a three pointer. Australia is a feisty team, though, and they battled back to cut the margin to 17-14 as Team USA took some questionable shots and had some defensive lapses. In one sequence, James inexplicably pulled up behind the three point line and launched a jumper on a 2 on 4 fast break, with Bryant in the left corner and not one Team USA player in the paint. Later, Bryant wisely passed up taking a three pointer in the half court set in order to feed the ball to Howard in the post. Howard got fouled and split a pair of free throws but Bryant, who is a great free throw line offensive rebounder, corralled the miss; his turnaround jumper was off the mark but the extra possession paid off for Team USA because Howard tipped in Bryant's shot. Australia answered with a Chris Anstey three pointer and then Bryant missed a three pointer early in the shot clock. Collins said, "I think every time the United States takes one of those quick threes it helps Australia's defense." So many people have erroneously talked about how important it is for Team USA to make three pointers but it is far more important for Team USA to defend the three point line effectively, force turnovers/missed shots and then score in transition. For Team USA, the three point shot is a luxury that can pad a lead, not a necessity for winning--something that should be evident to everyone after this contest, considering that three straight three pointers bridging the second and third quarters enabled Team USA to push a nine point lead to 18; Team USA was winning even before the three point barrage, but the outside bombing turned the game into a rout. That is why you only see Michael Redd on the court in garbage time and why defensive specialist Tayshaun Prince is the first wing player off of the bench after Wade.
Sideline reporter Craig Sager said that after a stoppage of play late in the first quarter, Coach Mike Krzyzewski told Team USA, "Stop being stupid. You are making dumb plays." In other words, stop looking for early three point shots and do a better job of guarding Australia's three point shooters; Australia shot 3-7 from three point range in the first quarter, tied the score at 21 and only trailed 25-24 after the first 10 minutes. A greater concern for Team USA than three point shooting is their free throw shooting: Team USA shot 5-11 (.455) from the free throw line in the first quarter and 18-31 (.581) for the game. Team USA can decide how many three pointers to shoot and when to shoot them but the opposing team dictates to some extent how many free throws Team USA will shoot and slowing the game down by fouling may be the best strategy against Team USA, at least for a team that has enough depth to withstand some foul trouble.
Early in the second quarter, Team USA went with a small lineup of Bryant, James, Anthony, Wade and Williams, trying to speed up the tempo against the bigger, slower Australian group that was on the court. Team USA forced a turnover that James converted into a fast break dunk for a 33-28 lead but then Anthony committed his second foul and had to go to the bench. He was replaced by Bosh, giving Team USA a more conventional--but still very quick--quintet. Bogut scored on a nice drive to the hoop but Bryant answered with an emphatic dunk in the half court set. Collins said, "Smart decision by Kobe Bryant. Looked like he was going to take the three. (David) Anderson on the closeout could not play with that type of quickness and Kobe with a brilliant play." Next came a wild sequence in which James stole the ball but threw it away and then Wade stole the ball and passed to Williams, who advanced the ball to Bryant, who faked a behind the back pass and made a layup. Australia trailed 37-30 and immediately called a timeout. On the next possession, Australia ran a great play resulting in a layup for Bogut. Collins observed, "Chris Bosh showed too quickly and when he did Andrew Bogut slipped the pick." Bryant immediately came over to Bosh and explained to him what he did wrong. That kind of leadership does not show up in the boxscore but it is exactly what Team USA was missing in previous years. Don't forget that Team USA led 33-21 early in their
101-95 loss to Greece in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. At that point, James told his teammates on the bench, "They don't know what to do"--but when Greece hit Team USA with a 24-8 run it was James and Team USA that did not know how to stop the bleeding. It is a different story now with Bryant on the team, because the defensive intensity is higher and when mistakes are made they are immediately corrected during the game. After the game, Jason Kidd said of Australia's strong early play, "We felt that in this game that they were going to live and die by the three pointer. They made a couple. We had a couple of defensive breakdowns but we took care of it. That’s the beauty of this team. On the fly we can solve problems without having to call timeouts. Communication is a big weapon for us. Nobody is afraid to talk to one another because we all respect one another." Once again Kidd's boxscore numbers (four points, one assist) will not blow anyone away but he has played a big role in changing the culture for Team USA and that should not be diminished or forgotten.
Another key moment came at the 3:59 mark with Team USA leading 43-36. James failed to complete a three point play by missing a free throw, Anthony got a strong rebound and Australian reserve Mark Worthington wound up and took a big swipe at Anthony's put back attempt, clocking Anthony in the head. Anthony smartly just smiled and walked to the free throw line but players from both teams began jawing at each other. Australia knows that Anthony and Howard can be hotheads and part of their strategy was to be very physical and hopefully get those guys off of their games. That approach helped Australia to give Team USA their toughest battle in the pre-Olympic exhibition tour, with Team USA only winning by 11,
87-76. Collins noted that the Soviet Union used a similar approach against Team USA when Collins played in the 1972 Olympics and it paid off as the Soviets baited Dwight Jones into being ejected. Collins said, "This is where you have to keep your poise. Worthington comes into the game. He's a guy who has no value to the Australians except maybe to get one of the better American players thrown out." Anthony made both free throws to put Team USA up 45-36. After the mishap on the Bogut play, Team USA closed the quarter with an 18-11 run--punctuated by a buzzer beating three pointer by Williams--to make the score 55-43 at halftime.
If Australia had any illusion about keeping the game relatively close in the second half, Bryant quickly disabused them of that notion, draining a three pointer on Team USA's first possession of the second half and scoring nine points in just 3:20 as Team USA used a 14-0 run to take a 69-43 lead. Bryant shot just 1-15 from three point range in the first two games of the Olympics, leading to some poorly considered commentary in some quarters about Bryant's relative value to this team. However, I kept a level head and
wrote, "Bryant shot 17-37 (.459) from three point range last summer when Team USA went 10-0 en route to winning the gold medal in the FIBA Americas tournament and he shot 7-19 (.368) from three point range when Team USA went 5-0 during their pre-Olympic exhibition tour--that adds up to 24-56 (.429) three point shooting during his 15 FIBA games prior to the Olympics. Bryant shot .361 from the 23-9 NBA three point distance last season and is a .340 career NBA three point shooter. In other words, at some point he is going to have a 6-8 game from the three point line and by the end of the Olympics his three point shooting percentage will be around its normal level." Bryant shot 4-7 from three point range versus Australia and he has shot 11-21 from behind the arc (.524) in the past four games, improving his overall three point percentage in the Olympics to .333. Bryant told Sager after the game, "The three point line now (in FIBA play), that's where I shoot fadeaways from." I read an idiotic comment somewhere in which someone asked how can Bryant be a top NBA shooting guard if he cannot make catch and shoot shots from 20 feet? As Bryant indicated, in the NBA he catches the ball at the free throw line extended and shoots turnaround jumpers from that range (or from just a little closer); Bryant is used to shooting three pointers from 23-9, so catching the ball facing the hoop at 20-6 is a little bit different. It's not that he cannot make the 20-6 shot but just that faceup shots from that range are not part of his normal repertoire. Bryant admitted that he is actually more comfortable shooting from a few steps behind the FIBA three point line, which he did a couple times in this game.
Bryant was the only Team USA player who played the entire second quarter plus the opening minutes of the third quarter, a stretch during which Team USA outscored Australia 46-24 (James sat out a little over a minute and a half during that time); except for the game against Spain when Bryant experienced early foul trouble, he typically has played most if not all of the second quarter and has almost always been on the court when Team USA breaks the game open in the second or third quarter.
Team USA pushed the margin to 85-55 before settling for an 89-61 advantage at the end of the third quarter. By that time, Bryant, James, Anthony and Kidd had been on the bench for a few minutes and one could have reasonably expected that their work was done. Wade was on the court at the end of the third quarter and he started the fourth quarter, which has been a normal rotation for this team--but Coach Krzyzewski inexplicably brought Bryant, James, Anthony and Kidd back into the game shortly after the start of the fourth quarter with Team USA leading 91-63. That quartet played alongside Redd. Maybe the idea was to spread out the defense enough so that Redd could make a shot? Redd did nail his first jumper en route to a 2-3 shooting performance in the fourth quarter to improve his Olympic shooting percentage to 10-31 (.323). Collins assured viewers that Redd could go off and make four in a row at any point to get his numbers back up to par. I have no doubt that this is true but if Redd does this it will be in garbage time, not when the game is even remotely in doubt. The bigger issue is bringing back four starters with a huge lead. Frankly, I was dumbfounded by this decision, particularly considering that Australia is a physical team and that they were no doubt frustrated about their imminent elimination from medal play. What would happen to Team USA if Australia committed a hard foul on Bryant or James and injured one of those guys?
Team USA outscored Australia 10-7 before the four starters returned to the bench. Wade came back for a cameo appearance and then he left the game for good. The curious substitution patterns slightly distorted the on court numbers for the five players who I have been tracking: Team USA outscored Australia 77-48 when Bryant was on the court, 75-48 when James was on the court, 60-37 when Anthony was on the court, 44-26 when Kidd was on the court and 48-43 when Wade was on the court. As I noted, Bryant was the only player who was on the court during Team USA's 46-24 run in the second quarter and early stages of the third quarter, though James was on the court for the vast majority of that time. Kidd helped Team USA get off to a good start by feeding Howard the ball early in the game and he was the point guard when Team USA broke the game open in the third quarter.
Argentina defeated Greece 80-78, so they will play Team USA for the right to advance to the gold medal game. Manu Ginobili scored 24 points and shot 6-13 from three point range versus Greece and it will be Bryant's job to contain him, a challenge that Bryant welcomes and relishes. After Team USA beat Australia but before Argentina played Greece, Bryant said, "We want to play the best. We want to play the defending (Olympic) champs. It’s all about challenges and obviously we welcome all comers. We know what a great team Greece is. Argentina is the defending champs. You want to be able to play the guys who won it the last time. I would love for us to have the opportunity." Of course, someone tried to twist his words into a slap at the Greeks, so Bryant immediately clarified his remarks by adding, "They’re both great teams. The point that I’m making is that when you’re a champion, you want to have the opportunity to defend your championship. And, anyone who has aspirations to be a champion, you understand there is a sense of pride that comes along with beating a champion. That’s all that comment’s about."
Labels: 2008 Olympics, 2008 Team USA, Andrew Bogut, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Patrick Mills
posted by David Friedman @ 3:46 PM
