Team USA has now improved to an unblemished two-win record at the Paris Olympics. There were some big adjustments that needed to be made under Steve Kerr's watch because they did not want to have a repeat of their exhibition battle against South Sudan. However, it came at the expense of Philadelphia 76ers superstar and former NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid.
Steve Kerr elected not to play Joel Embiid in a single minute in their Olympics triumph over South Sudan. While this is not the first time that this happened because Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton experienced the same fate last game, there were a lot of questions as to why the Team USA center out of the 76ers did not see the court. Clearly, Kerr had to explain himself after their 103-86 victory.
Kerr noted how it may not have been the best idea to play Embiid at all because of his lateral quickness, via Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
“This is the fastest team in the tournament that we’re going to play, and so we wanted to match up. They made 14 threes against us in London. So the whole game today was going to be about switching, staying in front of people, not letting them break us down,” he declared.
Clearly, Team USA is not sticking to a singular rotation. They are going to keep adjusting in this Olympics run such that they get to expose the weaknesses of each squad that they face.
“We just went with a change in the lineup. That’s how we’re going to do this. Whatever we need to do to win each game, that’s what we’re going to do. And so for this game, it just felt like that was the lineup that made the most sense,” the Team USA head honcho said.
Who took on Joel Embiid's role for Team USA?
Well, it was none other than Bam Adebayo. The Miami Heat superstar has been outstanding in their past two games and will likely carry that momentum until they win the Olympics gold medal. He finished with 18 points to lead Team USA in scoring. However, that was not the main point of praise that Kerr had when Adebayo was on the floor.
“The defense was fantastic tonight. We had a few letdowns, but it was more on the offensive side. I thought the ball stuck a little bit on offense. We had some turnovers, but the defensive effort was the key to the whole thing. Our strength is that we can lean on all of those great players depending on matchups, depending on how we want to play, who we’re playing,” Kerr continued. “And every single guy is capable of coming out there and taking over a game,” he proclaimed.
Team USA faces Puerto Rico led by Jose Alvarado next before they hopefully head to the quarterfinals.
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