FIBA World Cup: Team USA bounced by France in quarterfinals

Team USA gets worked over by Les Bleus

At Dongguan, Team USA took its first loss in FIBA World Cup play since a semifinal loss to Greece in the 2006 tournament and it was a loss that left a lot of questions unanswered.

Donovan Mitchell of the Jazz helped spark a U.S. comeback in the third quarter, scoring 14 of his game-high 29 points in the period, but was effectively shut out of the offense in the fourth.

Rudy Gobert of the Jazz dominated Team USA on the inside all night long, finishing with 21 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks, yet the U.S. played Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers for 11 minutes, Brook Lopez of the Milwaukee Bucks for 4½ and Mason Plumlee of the Denver Nuggets for just one, opting to go small at the 5 for most of the game.

About the only successful adjustment the U.S. made was on pick-and-roll coverage against Evan Fournier of the Orlando Magic, who paced France with 22 points, but those adjustments only came after he had helped Les Bleus to a 10-point lead early in the third quarter, primarily by being left alone after the screen.

Shooting and size were the two main issues for Team USA throughout the tournament and it was those two factors that ultimately led to their demise.

The U.S. shot 45 percent (29-for-65) overall and made 7-of-20 (35 percent) from 3-point range and was outrebounded by a whopping 44-28 margin.

France didn’t light it up from deep either, making 8-of-23 (35 percent) and shot 48 percent (30-for-63) overall. But the French took much better advantage of the 11 Team USA turnovers (22 points) than the U.S. did with 12 turnovers by France (11 points).

The ESPN2 broadcast made many mentions to Team USA having a 58-game winning streak in FIBA tournament play “with NBA players.”

That’s a bit of a disservice to the other national teams that competed in the Americas zone qualifying from late 2017 through early 2019. The scheduling window left NBA players unavailable for much of those games, so it wasn’t just a Team USA issue.

Team USA was 10-2 in the Americas qualifying, so their winning streak in FIBA tournament play was officially stopped at 12 games, since a 78-70 loss to Mexico at Mexico City on June 28, 2018.

The fourth quarter was a two-sided story: France took advantage of almost every opportunity and the Americans squandered many of theirs.

Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics missed four straight free throws (a feat now known as a “Turkey”) in the fourth. Boston’s Kemba Walker, after drawing contact from Gobert on a 3-point attempt, missed two of the three free throws.

And Team USA fell into isolation basketball in the fourth quarter, opting to have their guards challenge Gobert. That … did not end well.

France got a big boost in the fourth quarter from New York Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina, who scored seven of his 11 points in the final 10 minutes and created problems for the U.S. guards with his on-ball defense for most of the 25 minutes he played.

France (5-1) advances to Beijing for the final four of the tournament and will play Argentina (6-0) in a semifinal matchup on Friday at 8 a.m. Eastern.

Team USA (5-1) will be back on the court Thursday for what becomes a back-to-back, playing Serbia in the semifinals of the 5-8 classification tournament at 7 a.m. Eastern in Dongguan.

They will play in Beijing at either 4 a.m. Eastern on Saturday (with a loss to Serbia) for seventh place or at 8 a.m. Eastern Saturday (with a win over Serbia) for fifth place.

In any event, it will be the worst finish for USA Basketball since they were sixth in the what was then called the FIBA World Championships in 2002.

That was their worst-ever finish in a FIBA World Cup/World Championships and they missed out on a chance to become the first nation to win three consecutive gold medals. Brazil won back-to-back in 1959 and 1963 and the former Yugoslavia turned the trick in 1998 and 2002.