The Celtics have three players on Team USA and probably should have a fourth, so if there's one team to look to when there are questions about how well things are going on USA Basketball, it’s Boston.
And there are at least some questions after the Americans finished off their five-game schedule of friendlies with a pair of nail-biters over South Sudan and Germany.
Before we get into that, we should start with credit for these other teams. They might not be quite as talented as the United States team, but it doesn’t mean they are talentless. The Germans have a few pretty good NBA players on their roster and South Sudan has some fringe NBA talent, so they're not just walkovers for the Americans. Their talent, cohesiveness, and motivation to send a message against the NBA’s best makes every game dangerous for USA Basketball. This isn’t like the Dream Team days of elbowing Angolans and then having them ask for autographs after 60-point blowouts.
At the same time, these are exhibitions where the Americans might not be putting forth their best efforts. For all the admissions of talented competition, the U.S. team certainly looks like the old Celtics where they stand around a lot and just watch someone else try to cook, especially when they have a lead.
(Side note: That should show how that was always a league-wide thing and not a Boston-specific thing, but I digress)
Team USA is still the overwhelming favorite, and the gravity of actual Olympic play might be the only thing they need to snap out of whatever malaise grabs them in the middle of these games. However, there are ways to make sure those never show themselves, and those answers can be found in Boston.
First, they need to find a better mix of players. I applauded the addition of Derrick White because I love how he fits with a team full of stars. If the Celtics learned anything this past season, it’s that White and Holiday starting with a bunch of superstar players is pretty good.
It’d be very easy to slide Devin Booker out of the starting lineup and start White in his place. I don’t need to tell you that he’s a great defender, elite ball-mover, and clutch shooter. He processes the game as well as almost anyone in the league, so making the next right play is what White is all about.
White can also help fix their second issue, which is the stagnation I mentioned. Someone who knows how to get to spots, make himself available, and function well as a last-second outlet for a star who was stopped after going iso makes White a great candidate to help the ball movement.
And maybe this is an either/or thing where one of those two roles goes to White. It’s most likely he has to anchor a second unit because Kevin Durant will slide Booker to the bench upon his return. Whichever way they go, more White and more player/ball movement is key to keep the Americans out of their little slumps.
But the biggest issue so far is how many 3-pointers they’ve been passing up.
Germany shot 13-45 from 3 on Monday while USA shot 6-17. Steph Curry was 1-7, so the rest of the Americans were 5-10. Some of those came late when the Americans, led by LeBron James, were storming back to win the game, but that proves my point.
They’ve been out-shot from 3 in three of their five games. In their closest call, the one-point win over South Sudan, they were outscored by 21 from deep, which opens them up to the wild shooting variances from teams willing to toss those shots up.
Joe Mazzulla hates those kinds of games because he knows a team willing to shoot a lot of them can catch fire and take advantage if the Celtics get caught in trading 2s for 3s. When the math starts to get out of whack, it can negate a lot of the talent advantage.
I hate to break it to the “drive the ball at all costs” folks, but it’s 2024 and today’s game demands that open 3-pointers be taken. I’ve seen multiple possessions where guys had good looks -- looks the Celtics take every game -- and pass them up to make one more pass. And invariably, it goes to a guy who might not have been expecting the extra pass or who doesn’t have as much time on the clock to make a decision. A lot of those possessions have led to missed shots and turnovers.
Further, the insistence on driving in a game where there's no defensive 3-second call, allowing teams to pack the paint, puts the Americans in a tough spot. As we saw with the Celtics, forcing it a the rim leads to more misses than usual and those misses turn into advantages for the other team. And because teams know the rim is blocked off by the front line players, they can just overplay passing lanes and pick off the kick-outs.
There's no middle ground with this American team sometimes. They are either not passing at all, driving into walls, and hoping their immense talent will let them figure it out, or they're over-passing until they get themselves into a different kind of trouble.
They have a lot of good shooters who need to be in the mindset of taking the open shot rather than trying to exploit the talent advantage and drive to the rim. The rules make those plays tough unless they're in transition or in early offense before the defense gets set.
Mazzulla is on to something with his offensive approach. Guys need to be willing to take the open shots and pile up the possessions so they can maximize their talent and run away with these games. There has been a lot of talk about how this team might be the most talented of the NBA-filled USA squads, but there's no way that argument can ever be justified if they refuse to take the open 3-pointers that present themselves every game.