U.S. men finally play with urgency, rout Argentina
There are times when basketball is as simple a game as you’ll ever find.
Execution will always matter, along with coaching and chemistry and every other factor that is so often discussed. But when the U.S. men’s basketball players had their first defining moment Wednesday, turning a first-quarter, 10-point deficit in the quarterfinal against Argentina into a 105-78 win that matches them against Spain in a blockbuster semifinal Friday, it was good, old-fashioned effort that steadied their wobbly ship.
The Americans’ unrelenting, contagious energy brought them back from the brink.
After three consecutive edge-of-your-seat finishes against Australia, Serbia and France, with Team USA’s defense faltering at every step along the way, a second unit that was headed by Indiana Pacers star Paul George and the Chicago Bulls’ Jimmy Butler played with the kind of moxie that could certainly carry the team from here. Before long, with defense sparking offense in a way we haven’t seen with this team against a world-class opponent such as Argentina, a 27-2 run had the Americans on their way.
“The only thing we really changed was our passion, our energy,” said forward Kevin Durant, who had 27 points, six assists and seven rebounds. “We were one unit tonight, and we’re going to need that going forward.”
Maybe an assist should go to the Argentina crowd.
Inside a packed Carioca Arena 1, where the Argentines were there to see what turned out to be the final game of their famous Golden Generation (Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni, Luis Scola, Carlos Delfino), the NBA players who don’t see this sort of spirit stateside seemed to marvel at it early.
Yet over time, it was the Americans who stole the spotlight back. As their run continued, the Team USA bench that had been so placid in recent games was as raucous.
“For us, it’s all about effort,” said George, who had 17 points on 8-for-14 shooting. “We got all the talent in the world. If we don’t have no effort and no heart to it, we’re really just a joke in this thing.”
This question of inner fire was an elephant in the Team USA room even before tip-off.
After France fell to Spain in the quarterfinal matchup that preceded USA-Argentina, a reporter asked French coach Vincent Collet about a fascinating concept: Was it possible, in essence, that his team’s previous game against the Americans was simply not intense enough to ad- equately prepare his players for the basketball battle against the fiery Spaniards?
Never mind that France had fallen by only three points to the Americans — Collet said he agreed. As he saw it, the combination of France’s blowout win against an inferior Venezuela team followed by the Team USA game left his squad in a mental state that was far too mild. It was, in a roundabout way, quite the indictment of Team USA’s competitive juices.
Yet there were signs coming in that change was afoot.
As George said Tuesday, the Americans had a full-contact practice for the first time since the July 30 session in Houston that led into an exhibition game. They banged bodies, tested each other in the kind of no-holdsbarred way that would have made their NBA owners nervous and tried to change a psyche that needed tweaking.
As Team USA assistant coach Tom Thibodeau noted, it no longer matters how long it took them to figure out that simple part of the game as long as the gold medal mission is alive.
“The (first-half ) defense with Jimmy and Paul (was big), and I thought DeMarcus (Cousins) came in and gave us a big lift, too,” he said. “The thing is to play with high energy and to play with an edge. If we do that, we’ll be effective. … The challenge is to correct that before it costs you a game.”