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2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:21 am
by Mori Chu
I came to post about the USA being beaten and realized we don't have a WCs thread. So, here's one.

France eliminates Team USA from World Cup
Evan Fournier scored 22 points, Rudy Gobert added 21 points and 16 rebounds, and France beat Team USA 89-79 in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, rallying from a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit to pull off the upset.

...

The best the Americans can do now in China is finish fifth. They're going home with a berth in the 2020 Olympics secured, but no medal.

Donovan Mitchell scored 29 points for the U.S., all of them coming in the first three quarters. The Americans came up scoreless on six consecutive possessions down the stretch, a drought that allowed the French to take control of a back-and-forth game.

Mitchell had a chance to get the U.S. within two with about a minute left, driving against Gobert -- but the France center read what his Utah Jazz teammate was going to do perfectly, swatting the try away.

Nando De Colo scored 18 for France, and Ntilikina scored 11.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/basketbal ... -world-cup

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:22 am
by ShelC
As much crap as Booker's taking for not playing, Gobert killed the US so not sure where all the criticism is for the bigs who dropped out.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:48 am
by O_Gardino
I don't remember if this as already been posted, but here's bball breakdown on the Turkey game. Very good analysis, and I think we had a lot of the same problems against France.


Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:06 am
by The Bobster
The biggest problem is that here in the US there just isn't as much interest in playing in the FIBA World Cup as there is in playing in the Olympics.

When your best player is Kemba Walker you're seriously under-manned.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:42 am
by Superbone
The Bobster wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:06 am
The biggest problem is that here in the US there just isn't as much interest in playing in the FIBA World Cup as there is in playing in the Olympics.

When your best player is Kemba Walker you're seriously under-manned.
Yeah, I imagine the Olympic team next year will be much better.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:07 pm
by Split T
I can understand why booker chose not to play, but I wish he would have. Would have been a very good experience and I think we’d have seen him take on the alpha scorer role. So at the least we could maybe have some ammo for the Mitchell vs booker debate.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:27 pm
by Flagrant Fowl
I think having the World Cup and Olympics in back-to-back years is an underdiscussed factor.

I watched the first half of the game against France and it was obvious that the US would struggle to win. Gobert dominated the paint and the US couldn't get a big man to reliably hit outside shots.

It's nothing that hasn't already been discussed, but the team has two semi-stars in Kemba and Mitchell. The rest of the roster is filled out with role players. It's fine to have one or two role players in a line-up, but pushing into three or more was never going to be successful.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:22 pm
by Mori Chu
I don't know why everybody comes into these international competitions so highly confident in the USA squad. We never send our best. The other countries not only do send their best (other than a few exceptions like Canada), but they also play together beautifully, have intelligent team strategies, work together, etc. You see these teams like Brazil, France, Australia, etc. elevating their games and playing as a whole better than the sum of their parts. The USA teams never do that. It's just a bunch of guys out there doing their thing mostly individually. I'm not at all surprised that we were eliminated. I think it's a good wake-up call to the USA that we can't just send a bunch of B and C list players and expect to coast to a win.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:25 pm
by Split T
Marty [Mori Chu] wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:22 pm
I don't know why everybody comes into these international competitions so highly confident in the USA squad. We never send our best. The other countries not only do send their best (other than a few exceptions like Canada), but they also play together beautifully, have intelligent team strategies, work together, etc. You see these teams like Brazil, France, Australia, etc. elevating their games and playing as a whole better than the sum of their parts. The USA teams never do that. It's just a bunch of guys out there doing their thing mostly individually. I'm not at all surprised that we were eliminated. I think it's a good wake-up call to the USA that we can't just send a bunch of B and C list players and expect to coast to a win.
We don’t often send our best, but we usually send a pretty solid B team. This current team is a different story. We sent 2 all stars(Kemba and Middleton), maybe 3 if Brook made an all star. This was a C or D team. I’m not surprised we lost and would have actually been surprised if we won.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:30 pm
by Superbone

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:54 pm
by iLLmatic
Wake me up when one of these international teams beat our best.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:54 pm
by Nodack
I think it’s a good thing. It teaches us a little bit of humility and it allows other countries to win every once in awhile.

Re: 2018 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:48 pm
by Mori Chu
Yeah I mean, I always want the USA to win. But if they refuse to try their hardest and send their best, maybe they need to learn the lesson that that is simply not good enough.

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:24 am
by pickle
This should be the 2019 world cup... no?

Anyway, anal retentiveness aside, I think part of the problem is that this team really isn't much of a team. Even though the players aren't stars beyond Walker and Mitchell, none of the role players besides Harris (and maybe Middleton) are surefire shooters. When they catch the ball from a swing around, most of them pump fake and try to put the ball on the floor instead of just popping up for a shot. The increased physicality of the international game vs. the NBA and the smaller court means there's far less space to operate one on one (or one on several) and the lack of offensive rebounding means the team struggles to score.

Given the relatively high average abilities for the full team, though, I'm surprised the team didn't leverage its depth and played 3/4 court defense for the full game to force a more frenetic pace.

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 1:30 am
by SDC
mills and dellavadova will give rubio problems, i expect to see a poor shooting night from him.

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 3:57 am
by ShelC
Does anyone really care about international ball outside of the Olympics? The team sent over was pretty trash with regards to international play/style and the talent other teams are putting out. Jaylen Brown? Marcus Smart? Plumlee? I get the list of players willing to sign up was thin, but you need skill players, not defensive/intangible role players. This roster felt reminiscent of the 2004 Olympic team.

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 6:46 am
by In2ition
Feels ike Pop wanted a team to mold like his Spurs, but he forgot that it takes time, a lot more time to put in his system than you can do in a short training camp ready for international play.

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:52 am
by O_Gardino
I really hate the take that we needed more talent. France payed better than the US - they didn't have more talent.

The reason our National team never plays good ball is that we have basketball culture that doesn't value bball iq and playing as a team. Yeah, when we send our best we can play like trash and still win. But it's embarrassing that we accept the mental/cultural shortcomings of the team.

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:10 am
by Mori Chu
Maybe it's splitting hairs. But I do think they needed more talent. More shooting talent, more rebounding talent, more passing talent, more defensive talent. Not a bunch of "energy" or "athleticism" guys like Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Miles Turner. I mean, this team had Harrison Barnes on it! P.U.! Again, maybe we're splitting hairs; maybe they didn't need strictly "more" talent but rather the right kind of talent. But this is not an imposing group of guys. Other than 1-2 of them, who are you scared of taking a 3? Who is a great distributor, a great passer on this team? Why would this totally random group of guys play well together? If this were an NBA team it'd win 30 games. Why should it win an international competition?

Re: 2019 FIBA World Cup

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:17 am
by O_Gardino
I agree that the team didn't have the right kind of skills for the international game like you and Shel both said (and maybe others). I just take issue with the idea that the fix is to bring in the biggest stars. That French team wouldn't make the playoffs in the nba, either. I question why so many of the guys on team usa can be 20 ppg scorers in the nba without developing the skills needed to play team ball in a tighter space.