Team USA had its first tuneup game ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, a 90-87 loss to the Nigerian national team that many are heralding as a shockingly historic win. Jayson Tatum started and played fairly well, scoring 15 points and grabbing 7 rebounds in 28 minutes.
Here are five quick thoughts from the game.
This was an upset, but there’s a lot of overreaction going on, too.
Let’s put this in proper perspective. From the Nigerian side, this is a big deal. Exhibition or not, a win over Team USA is a flashpoint in the country’s basketball history. The United States team is the measuring stick against which all international basketball is judged, so I can understand why the country of Nigeria and basketball in Africa in general would see this as important.
Because it is from their perspective. It’s a meaningful win.
However, the talk about this being some kind of historic upset is a tad overblown considering how the U.S. team was approaching this game. This was very clearly a case of one team trying to find a rhythm and going through some of the motions while another had players still trying to make the team.
The effort was simply not the same on both sides. That showed in the rebounding, where the Americans were out-rebounded by 12.
“You know the stats -- I almost wanted to give it back to the stat guys and say can you do these over there's got to be some mistakes, do your homework over again,” Gregg Popovich said after the game. “I thought we got murdered on the board. We got beat on the board but I thought we got murdered.”
That’s an effort thing. Team USA’s players clearly treated this as a low-key tuneup after four days of practice while Nigeria treated it as a major test where players were hoping to prove themselves worthy of making the team.
Still, Nigeria is a worthy opponent
This shouldn’t be taken as being dismissive of the Nigerian national team. That’s a team that won’t just be a pushover. An opponent has to beat this team.
Nigerian basketball is having a moment. Celtics head coach Ime Udoka is a former member of the Nigerian team, and now he’s the head coach of a storied franchise. Giannis Antetokounmpo is known as the “Greek Freak” because he was born in Athens, but his family emigrated to Greece from Nigeria. The country is growing an impressive basketball lineage and nights like this only help add to it.
“That's a talented group of players, that's not a bunch of people off the street playing basketball,” Popovich said “So, you need to understand that every year teams are better and better. And every year, one or two or three more NBA players are on their teams. So, they're, they're a quality team.”
This is the beauty of international competition. It started with the Dream Team and it continues today. Somewhere in Nigeria, a young boy saw this game and was inspired to play basketball. In 10 or 15 years, we’re going to hear his story about how he saw this game and he wanted to be part of it.
Yes, it means an erosion of American dominance over the sport, but it also means untapped talent bases will begin to funnel great players into the basketball pipeline. It will make the NBA and leagues around the world better, which make the sport as a whole better.
That’s exciting.
Jayson Tatum was good
Tatum was kind of effortless in this game, which is a good sign for this Olympic run. He took the shots that were there, didn’t force shots that weren’t, and he took advantage of the FIBA rule that allowed a little more physicality to get to the line five times. His 15 points were second on the team to Kevin Durant’s 17, but both guys made four field goals, but it took Durant six more shots on an off night.
Tatum only took seven shots, but was clear that he was one of the better players on the floor. He played pretty well defensively and when he had the ball in his hand, good things happened. He just didn’t have it in his hands enough, and especially not at the right times.
Which leads me to...
Team USA was not good down the stretch
I thought Tatum was done for the night and that Popovich was going to be content playing out the fourth quarter with USA Select guys. Saddiq Bey and Darius Garland had gotten onto the floor but with about six minutes left, Pop went back to the starters.
Nigeria was hot from 3, hitting 20 of 42 from deep, and that put Team USA on its heels.
“We didn't get anything off of a rebound,” Popovic said. “That hurts your scoring, obviously. But in addition to that, when they got into us physically, we reverted to NBA ISO one on one, that's not going to get it done.”
There are two things that happen with a new collection of top-shelf talent like Team USA has. Either they overpass in an effort to be overly unselfish, or ...
“There were certain points where it felt like we were taking turns, instead of just moving,” Tatum explained.
What do you expect with Durant, Damian Lillard, and Bradley Beal on the floor at the same time? Tatum was just sort of along for the ride when, in actuality, he probably should have had the ball in his hands the most.
There’s plenty of time for them to figure this out, so this isn’t time to overreact. Hopefully they’ll learn that moving the ball will give all of them ample opportunity to be the hero.
If they do, then they’ll be fine. If they don’t, then I’ll be writing about what went wrong on the way to not winning the gold.
The best stretch of the game belonged to the officials.
My favorite stretch of the game should be very telling for the NBA.
Early in the game, Nigeria fired up a shot as the shot clock wound down, with the buzzer sounding with the ball in mid-air.
The shot missed everything, which would have been a whistle and a side out in the NBA. In this game, there was no whistle. They just played on.
Heavenly.
Then Kevin Love up-faked a defender on the ensuing possession and tried to lean into him to draw a shooting foul. There was no whistle.
DOUBLE HEAVEN!
The NBA needs to get on board with some of these FIBA rules so we can enjoy the flow of the game a bit more. There is no reason to blow the whistle when a defensive team rebounds an airball on a 24-second violation.
It’s one of a few rules changes to fall more in line with the international game that needs to happen. It goes along with the elimination of the take foul to stop fast breaks. I don’t want to reward a team that fouls after screwing up in an effort to cover up the result of that screw up.
I want to see up-and-down basketball. Let’s make that happen.