Team USA had their first game together Wednesday night as it was an exhibition game against Team Canada where they won, 86-72. It was far from a perfect performance, but with the immense group of talent assembled for the Paris Olympics, star Anthony Davis has a bold claim about who can truly beat their team.
Anthony Davis calls Team USA “unbeatable”
The squad started on a dreadful note on offense as they missed their first six shots, had eight turnovers in the first quarter, and even were down in a 11-1 deficit with more than five minutes left in the opening period. However when looking at the game overall, they were stellar on defense as the Los Angeles Lakers star in Davis puts it plainly on what their ceiling is if they can continue to excel on that end of the floor according to Tim Bontemps ESPN.
“Unbeatable,” Davis said when asked about the defensive performance from Team USA. “Offensively we were, to keep it frank, we were pretty terrible. But it's a good terrible in the sense of we were trying to make the right plays. … [But] if we're worried about offense, I think we're in a good spot. Where we hung our hat tonight was defensively.”
Joel Embiid agrees with Davis on USA's offensive and defensive outing
Davis would finish the game with 10 points while collecting 11 rebounds to go along with four blocks as he is one of three centers on the team who are elite on defense in Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo and Philadelphia 76ers big-man Joel Embiid. Even the latter admitted that they were mistakes on offense especially from him who finished with five points, but at least they can “hang our hat” on the defensive side of the ball.
“We could have been much better,” Embiid said. “We didn't take care of the ball. Defensively, we were pretty good. So that's where we're going to hang our hat, and offensively it's going to come.”
The sluggish nature of Team USA's first dress rehearsal should not come as much as a surprise since it is hard to balance out the best players in the NBA on one single team. It will no doubt take some time for the team to be as cohesive as it can be when trying to mesh together this amount of talent.
Team USA head coach Steve Kerr reflects on first game
The same sentiments were echoed by Team USA head coach Steve Kerr, also head coach for the Golden State Warriors, who would reflect on the win over Canada. He would call it a “good” opener for the team and give the disclaimer that USA has been together for “four days of practice” which could have been the correlation to the inefficiency on offense.
“Good first game for us,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr said. “We are just starting with four days of practice. You could see the rust on us offensively early. We had a lot of turnovers in the first half, [but] I loved the defensive intensity and the work on the glass. It was a good first effort on how we want to establish play moving forward.”
The win from Team USA probably felt great for Kerr and the rest of the coaching staff and the team as Canada would beat their North American Rivals in the 2023 FIBA World Cup to get the bronze medal. That outing would spark Lakers star LeBron James to commit to the Paris Olympics and recruit other superstars to do so as well according to The Athletic which has led to the stacked team that stepped foot on the court Wednesday night.
Team USA's conundrum on who to start
With how talented Team USA is, people were wondering who Kerr would insert into the starting lineup which ended up being James, Embiid, Warriors star Stephen Curry, Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker, and Boston Celtics star Jrue Holiday. It was actually the second unit that looked more efficient with Davis, Adebayo, Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton, Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards, and Celtics' Jayson Tatum, but Kerr would say that “you can't go wrong” with any lineup.
“You can't go wrong picking a starting lineup with this group,” Kerr said via ESPN. “I'm going to do something different in the next two games. We will look at a few different combinations before we settle on anything. We wanted to establish Joel early in the game knowing Canada didn't have any size. We wanted to play Bam and Anthony Davis with the second group. We wanted to experience what that looked like.”
LeBron James talks playing with Stephen Curry on Olympics team
Another aspect of Team USA that people are excited to see are the team of James and Curry who have never played on an Olympics team together, despite both having success separately. James would say that it is “an absolute treat” that he gets to play with Curry as the two have formed a friendly rivalry with one another in the NBA as both met in a numerous amount of championship games.
“It's pretty amazing that we're at this point of our careers and we're able to showcase our talent and do what we love to do and give a little bit back to the fans,” James said of playing with Curry. “So it's an absolute treat to play with one of the greatest to ever play this game, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the summer.”
Edwards led the team off the bench with 13 points, where Curry had 12, Holiday had 11, and Davis had 10 as previously said. At any rate, the next contest Team USA will compete in and look to clean things up in preparation for the actual tournament will be Monday as they will play against Australia in Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates.
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