Team USA's loss to Nigeria was definitely a stunner, but perhaps that could have been chalked up to it being some first-game weirdness in an exhibition setting. But Team USA lost another exhibition game on Monday, this time to Australia, and now there's something of a panic surrounding the team. While several key players are missing (Devin Booker, Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday), there's still too much talent on this roster to be stinking it up like this.
There are still several more exhibition games before the Tokyo Olympics, but there's not exactly a whole lot of time for Team USA to figure things out. According to star Damian Lillard and head coach Gregg Popovich, though, they know one big problem that's plaguing the team.
Via The Athletic's Joe Vardon:
“We are still working at becoming a team, getting our legs under us and getting in shape,” said Lillard, whose 22 points and six 3s led the Americans.
“In the second half, we tired out,” Popovich said. “And when that happens, you get hit mentally a little bit, too. We didn’t sustain the boards the same way, the defense wasn’t the same, our pace wasn’t the same, so we got some guys that have to get their legs and rhythm back, but in general, we need more conditioning, which is totally understandable.”
The NBA players on Team USA are coming off a weird, condensed season, so it would make some sense that they're a bit tired and need to find their groove again. It looked like Team USA was going to pull away from Australia after going up nine points at halftime, only to fall apart defensively in the second half and offensively in crunch time to suffer a 91-83 loss.
Still, this can't all be blamed on conditioning (Australia has NBA guys too!), though Lillard did note the “working at becoming a team” part. There's clearly very little chemistry, with a lot of one-on-one play and poor defensive execution. The defense has been truly pathetic through two games against teams with must less talent. This could be lack of effort and/or conditioning, though it's also true the roster doesn't currently have many lockdown defenders.
Holiday and Middleton should help on that front, but Team USA clearly has some work to do regardless. While it might not be time to hit the panic button, the hand should be hovering over it. Losing games like this now doesn't necessarily mean they won't win gold in Tokyo, but it's not a good sign.
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