FIBA World Cup: Team USA wins final (game in China, finishes 7th)

Team USA concluded a disappointing FIBA World Cup with a victory, beating stubborn Poland 87-74 in the 7th-place game on Saturday, while Serbia placed 5th.

Team USA ended its FIBA World Cup run with a victory. The problem for many observers was that that ending happened well before the gold-medal game on Sunday.

Instead, the U.S. captured seventh place in the tournament, bouncing back from two straight losses to beat upstart Poland 87-74 in Beijing on Saturday.

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The seventh-place finish is the lowest ever for USA Basketball at a FIBA world event and failed to medal for just the fourth time in 16 trips to the FIBA World Cup/World Championships.

The U.S. also fell short in its attempt to become the first national team to win the event three straight times after gold medals in 2010 and 2014.

Their previous worst finish had been a sixth-place effort as the tournament hosts under coach George Karl at the 2002 FIBA World Championships in Indianapolis.

Team USA had, however, already clinched one of the two automatic berths from the FIBA Americas zone for next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, qualifying along with Argentina as the top two finishers from the zone at the World Cup.

Poland, which should rise in the FIBA World Rankings after unexpectedly reaching the elimination round as the No. 25 team in the world, came out a bit star-struck against the Americans and fell into a big early hole.

The U.S. led by 14 after one period and took its largest lead at 38-19, midway through the second quarter before Poland clawed back into the game by whittling a 17-point halftime deficit down to seven late in the third quarter.

But seven was as close as the Poles would get on a night when Team USA had just one of its four Boston Celtics available.

Jayson Tatum missed the final six of the squad’s eight games in China with a sprained left ankle, Marcus Smart sat out the last two with leg injuries and Kemba Walker sat out the finale with a neck injury.

Team USA got through just fine as it finally shot the ball well, hitting 50.8 percent overall (31-for-61) and canning 12-of-25 (48 percent) from 3-point range, finishing the tournament at 45 percent overall and 34.9 percent from deep.

Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz played a team-high 32 minutes and finished with a double-double, notching 16 points and 10 assists.

Joe Harris of the Brooklyn Nets added 14 points, Khris Middleton of the Milwaukee Bucks tossed in 13 to go with six assists and Derrick White of the San Antonio Spurs, who started in place of Walker, went for 12 points and seven assists.

Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers didn’t have a terrific offensive night, scoring seven points on 3-of-9 shooting, but he was a difference-maker defensively, blocking four shots and altering many others, while also getting a team-high eight rebounds.

After the win, USA Basketball head coach Gregg Popovich was having nothing to do with the assignment of blame which has been happening back home since their quarterfinal loss to France, per Brian Windhorst of ESPN.

"“Some people want to play the blame game, there’s no blame to be placed anywhere. They want to play the shame game, like we should be ashamed because we didn’t win a gold medal?“That’s a ridiculous attitude. It’s immature, it’s arrogant and it shows that whoever thinks that doesn’t respect all the other teams in the world and doesn’t respect that these guys did the best they could.”"

Still, it was hard not to have the feeling this U.S. squad was the leftovers, after 31 of the 35 players on the roster at the beginning of last summer withdrew from playing in China, with more dropping out after being named to the roster.

Of the group announced last year when Popovich officially replaced Mike Krzyzewski as the Americans’ head coach, only Middleton, Turner, Walker and Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings were actually in uniform at the FIBA World Cup.

USA Basketball will have the better part of a year to assemble its team for Tokyo and Popovich also would have no part in the speculation about who would be going to Japan next July.

"“This isn’t really the time to even think about that. It’s 10 months away.”"

Poland was led by a standout effort from Mateusz Ponitka, who dropped in 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds on 8-of-11 shooting. Adam Waczynski added 17 points and A.J. Slaughter finished with 15 points and five assists.

Poland had emerged from Group A with a 3-0 record and added a fourth win in the second-round before their run was ended with an emphatic loss to Argentina at the close of the second round.

That was followed by a quarterfinal loss to Spain and losses to the Czech Republic and the U.S. in the classification round.

Poland did earn a spot in one of the four Olympic qualifying tournaments to be held next June. This was the national team’s first FIBA World Cup/World Championship appearance since 1967 and just its second overall. They haven’t been to the Olympics since the 1980 Games in Moscow.

In the fifth-place game on Saturday, Serbia rebounded from a lackadaisical defensive effort in the first half against the Czech Republic and turned the game into a rout in the second half before taking a 90-81 victory.

For the Czechs, the sixth-place finish in its first appearance in the FIBA World Cup not as part of the former Czechoslovakia still had to be satisfying, considering their No. 24 spot in the FIBA World Rankings coming into the event.

But the Czechs had two problems — Bogdan Bogdanovic of the Kings and figuring out how to slow the Serbians down once they engaged in the second half.

Bogdanovic had an outstanding tournament and finished on a high note with 31 points on 10-of-17 shooting, hitting 7-of-12 from 3-point range — including some of the ridiculous variety.

The Czech Republic had a big first half, leading by as much as 13 points and holding a 50-41 lead at the break, but Serbia turned things on in the second half, taking an 18-point lead in the fourth quarter before relaxing a bit and settling for the nine-point victory.

Nikola Milutinov finished with 14 points for Serbia, going 6-for-6 on the night, and Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets ended the tournament with seven points, 14 rebounds and seven assists.

But it was Bogdanovic who stole the show for Serbia throughout the tournament, averaging 22.9 points per game. In the final two victories for the Serbians against Team USA and the Czech Republic, he had 59 points on 20-of-34 shooting and was 14-for-26 from 3-point range.

In eight games in China, Bogdanovic shot 55.6 percent overall and was an unconscious 53.0 percent on 8.2 3-point attempts per game. And he still had time to average 4.4 assists a game as well.

Patrik Auda led the Czechs with 16 points in just 22 minutes off the bench and Martin Peterka came out of nowhere to score 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting, nailing 4-of-5 from deep. Ondrej Balvin had another double-double — his third of the tournament — with 12 points and 10 boards.

But the Czechs missed Blake Schilb, who led the event in 3-point shooting at 64.7 percent (11-for-17), but missed the final game with a sprained left ankle first sustained in their second-round win over Brazil on Sept. 7.

Tomas Satoransky of the Chicago Bulls, who had logged 35 or minutes in four of the Czech Republic’s eight games, finally ran out of magic, finishing with 13 points and six assists on 4-of-10 shooting.

That sets up Sunday’s closing action.

In the third-place game, we will have the only rematch of the tournament when France and Australia tangle again. Their first meeting was one of the best games of the event, a 100-98 victory by the Boomers to close second-round group play.

France is looking for its second straight bronze-medal finish after getting to the podium for the first time in seven FIBA World Cup/World Championship appearances in 2014.

Australia is looking for its first medal in international play after placing fourth at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. The Boomers have already assured themselves of their best FIBA World Cup finish after placing fifth in both 1982 and 1994.

The third-place game tips off at 4 a.m. Eastern, followed by the final between Argentina and Spain at 8 a.m. Eastern, with each seeking their second FIBA World Cup title. Argentina won the inaugural FIBA World Championships as the hosts in 1950, but have not medaled since.

However, the Argentinians have two Olympic medals, a gold in Athens in 2004 and a bronze in Beijing in 2008.

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Spain won the title in 2006 for its only medal in FIBA World Cup/World Championship play. However, Spain has taken a medal in each of the last three Olympics, capturing silver in 2008 at Beijing and 2012 in London and earning a bronze in Rio de Janeiro three years ago.