Team USA continues to look comfortable in the favorite’s role in this year’s World Cup. After going undefeated in five exhibition games, the Americans routed Greece on Tuesday for their second straight double-digit victory in pool play. Austin Reaves, a favorite of the Manila crowd because of his ties to the Lakers, led the way with 15 points, five rebounds and six assists.
Bobby Portis told reporters, including Cesare Milanti of Eurohoops, that the U.S. team quickly formed a bond despite not playing together before training camp began early this month.
“We stand together, obviously, it’s a journey, a long road ahead for us,” Portis said. “Two more weeks left with this team, and hopefully, we can get to the final round. We’ve been together for three and a half weeks now. Nobody complains about playing time, everybody plays for each other, playing for the name you find on this jersey. That’s what this brand is about: playing for each other, going out here, winning and having fun.”
There’s more on Team USA:
- Head coach Steve Kerr was especially impressed by Josh Hart, who came off the bench to grab 11 rebounds in 20 minutes against Greece, according to Joe Vardon of The Athletic. Hart missed the first exhibition game while waiting to finalize his extension with the Knicks, but he has become one of the team’s primary reserves. “People ask, what position does he play? He plays winner,” Kerr said. “I don’t know what position he plays, but he gets loose balls. He guards anybody. At one point, Spo (Erik Spoelstra) turned to me and said, ‘Some people get 50-50 balls. He gets to 30-70 balls,’ and I thought that was really well said.”
- Jaren Jackson Jr. found himself in foul trouble in the opener against New Zealand, much like he often has with the Grizzlies, observes Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year believes he needs to challenge as many shots as he can, but Kerr is encouraging him to be more discerning. “He’s foul-prone in the NBA,” Kerr said. “So, there’s always one or two plays where you just want him to let it go, because he’s too important to us. So we share those clips and just remind him sometimes the best play is to just let the guy go and don’t pick up the foul.”
- The American players quickly learned that the international game is officiated differently than the NBA, per Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. Defenders tend to be more aggressive and are allowed to get away with more contact. “Everybody is going to try to beat the crap out of us because that’s their best chance to beat us,” Kerr said.
The NBA should readopt some of that physical style play.
The leauge has become to ballerina like in what it wants to see. Way to much emphasis on finesseing your way to winning than on building teams that can win regardless of style.
If your not a pretty ball playing team your no good to the NBA eyes.
No one wanted to accept what the Heat were doing in the playoffs. As close to there is a tunnel at the end of the light of Rileys famous speech as any will ever see.
Have to wonder if the league’s fear of load management would play any role in that consideration? If guys are already sitting out games in a less physical environment, how are they and/or their teams going to respond with increased physicality? The easy answer is to tell them to suck it up, but as we all know reality is never so simple.
Plus, the league does allow for a more physical game in the playoffs, as you alluded to. Don’t think they will want to bring that into the regular season unless viewership starts to dip and they feel the need to shake things up.
The European game is generally 5 to 10 years behind the NBA game. The international players play a game similar to what the Spur’s and Lakers did in the 2000’s. The dominance of 3 point shooting changed the NBA game. While I expect the NBA game to move back to using taller players they will have have to possess more skills than brute force. Guys like Evan Mobley and Victor Wembanyama are the league’s future. Perimeter defense is now as important as rim protection. Faster big men like Mobley who can switch from 1 to the other will dominate. I don’t see Guys like Ben Wallace being the future. A guy like Rodman who was fast and a leaper could still be very valuable. Anyway the 3 point shot isn’t going away. As a result we won’t soon see a return to the 86 to 83 defensive struggles of yesterday.
It all (or almost all) comes down to officiating. Outside of the NBA, the officiating hasn’t changed much (it’s still based on the classic rules), so neither has the game. Any student of the international game will tell you that its last sea change occurred following the 1976 Olympics through the early 1980’s. Many reasons. In any event, today, the international game is played almost the same way as it was in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s. That game was and is less physical then the NBA game played from the mid-1980’s through the early 2000’s, but more physical than the NBA today. If, God forbid, Silver becomes commissioner of the entire basketball world, I imagine the games would look like almost the same sport.
That’s such a Spo thing to say lol, but its true