RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil– At least, we know the rest of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament won’t be boring.
For the second consecutive game, Serbia, a less talented but more cohesive team, showed the rest of the world can be competitive with Team USA’s heavyweight group of NBA All Stars, pushing the heavily favored but internationally inexperienced Americans to the limit during a 94-91 loss in pool A play at Carioca Arena.
The Serbs recovered from a shaky start to dominate the final 30 minutes of play with unselfish ball sharing and 51.7 percent shooting, taking advantage of the Americans overly aggressive style of play to consistently create pick and roll and back door opportunities in the paint.
Team USA is 4-0 has shown it is capable of outscoring any team it plays, building up an 18-point lead on Serbia at one point, but it is still learning how to play effective team defense, which opened the door for a huge Serbian comeback. That could prove to be a fatal flaw on the two-time Olympic champions as the tournament enters its knockout stages. Earlier this week, the Americans had to work hard to defeat high Australia, who had the same team first philosophy, as Serbia and defeated them, 95-80, in pool play. If the United State’s 98-88 was a wake up call, who knows how the media will describe this game.
USA Olympic Men’s Basketball team holds off Serbian surge
The Serbs dominated parts of the second half and actually had a chance to force overtime on the final possession, but guard Brodgan Boganovic from the NBA missed a potential game-trying 22-foot three point shot that was long in the final seconds and Kevin Durant came up with the rebound to save this day.
“This is first time Serbia’s has been in the Olympics, said Jokiv, who is in his second year in the NBA.”I think we proved we belong. I’m a better player now. My teammates give me the ball trust me and I trust them. I play against these players from the USA all the time. I know they they are just players. I think Australia showed they can get beat.”
Nikola Jokiv, an active 6-10, 21-year old center who plays for the NBA Denver Nuggets, is the biggest talent on a new generation of stars in this rapidly improving national team, was a nightmare match up for Team USA. He shot 11-for-15, scored a game high 25 points and grabbed six rebounds in 29 minutes. He gave a United States’ defense that features centers DeMarcus Cousins, DeAndre Jordan and Paul George fits. He scored in the paint and knocked down threes, blocked a shot from Cousins and was the key to Serbia’s high post passing game that is modeled after the San Antonio Spurs,
“Does he play that well for Denver,” an amazed Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski asked a Mark Kiszla, an astute columnist from that mile high city. “He played with the poise of a much older player.” .
“He’s the best guy Serbia has now,” said Milos Teodosic, who scored 18 points and might be the best point guard in European basketball. “He’s a young guy. He’s got huge potential. He’s only been playing serious basketball for a year. He needed time. In the future, for the next 15 years, he’s going to be the main guy on our international team. He’s going to show he belongs in the NBA.”
Serbia coach Sasha Djordjevic had to be proud of the way his deceptive 1-3 team competed after a rocky first five minutes where they fell behind to the US, 8-0.
“I had to do something to wake them up,” he said. “We’re missing two minutes against Australia, five against the USA. I hope we realize we have to get better. I think we should stop thinking and just go out there and do our thing. Our game is just about playing together and both endsof the floor there is no individual guy who can just take over.
“Our game plan was to cut and put the USA on the line– at least a couple of their guys (Are you listening DeAndre Jordan) We have the China game next. We are not qualified yet but I believe if we are are qualified we are going to be really really ready.”
For most of Europe, the Olympics is the holy grail. Serbia is three NBA players– Jokic, center Miroslav Raduljica of the Minnesota T-Wolves, who scored 18 points before fouling out; and Boganovic from the Sacramento KIngs and could have a forth if some NBA would be living to live with Tedosic’s defensive liabilities.
Having said that, the continent’s national teams constantly play together. Team USA is good, but it was put together with bailing wire after forward LeBron James, the $100 million dollar man with Cleveland and the best player on the planet; three point deluxe shooter Stephen Curry and guards Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook took a pass.
The 2016 Olympic team has only two players– Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant– who played in the 2012 London games and four more– guard Kyrie Irving,center DeMarcus Cousins and guards Klay Thompson and DeMar DeRozen– who played on the gold medal winning 2014 World Championship team.
Irving scored 15 points and Durant and Carmelo Anthony had 12 apiece for the U.S. team, which arrived in Brazil being celebrated as another American Dream team. But there has been a learning curve.
“Guys don’t talk like we’re supposed to,” Cousins said. “It’s just being solid on defense, don’t gamble as much, be in the right postion. I think the guys may have looked to switch too often. I think that’s correctable. I think if we play solid defense we’re be alright. a lot of our guys haven’t played internationally before just got to stay together and I think we’ll be okay we just have to stay strong through adversity.
“We’re used to playing a certain way. this international game is different than the NBA. When things happen we don’t expect we have to adjust.”
And understand they have a target on their back.
Team USA has won 49 straight games in international competition. They have been challenged before, by Spain in the 2008 and 2012 gold medal game and Lithuania in London pool play. This is has a different feeling to it, the U.S. won 129-92 that day.
“When people look at it like it’s just supposed to be easy, whenever anyone says that, I kind of tune them out because they don’t understand,” he said. “They don’t understand that other people are really good. We’re going to get back to 2000 and 2006, where we’re arrogant, we don’t give people credit, we think it’s all going to be easy and then we’re not going to play well and we’re not going to win.
“You can’t fall into that.”
