When Team USA built its squad and agreed on its World Cup strategy for this cycle, it placed a wager. It was a reasonable wager, and the Americans loaded the deck as far as they could to attempt to win it, but the truth was that they went in knowing they were leaving themselves vulnerable.
That bet, that the size difference might be offset by other factors, has failed. Germany, another European team that towered over the Americans, took advantage of the situation and defeated Team USA 113-111 in the world semifinals on Friday.
It will deprive the Americans gold for the second time in a row. They’ll have to settle for bronze against Canada on Sunday (ESPN+, 4:45 a.m. ET), who fell to Serbia in the other semifinal.
The United States played an energetic and competitive game. The squad was just too tiny, and that showed up constantly, just as it did against Lithuania in the earlier defeat last weekend.
“They’ve got a lot of big, strong guys,” remarked Team USA coach Steve Kerr. “They put a lot of pressure on your defence, and to be honest, they outplayed us.”
Germany just had more opportunities to score because it was able to recover the ball when it missed. The Germans grabbed 12 offensive rebounds, which resulted in 25 second-chance points (Team USA had eight).
They didn’t, however, miss very frequently. When he’s in a passing mode, point guard Dennis Schroder is a weapon against the US because he’s skillful enough to manage their ball pressure. When combined with Germany’s height advantage, it resulted in a flood of high-percentage shots.
And that was not going to work.
“We got outrebounded all night,” said guard Anthony Edwards, who finished with 23 points and attempted to lead a late rally. “They were more physically imposing than us.”
After Germany had a 12-point lead, the US reduced it to one in the last two minutes. But Andreas Obst’s 3-pointer, the last of his 24 points and four 3-pointers, held off the American assault.
When the United States turned on screen-and-rolls, several mismatches were produced. Packing the paint defensively to attempt to cope with the size problem resulted in the Germans getting some decent looks from outside, and they made the Americans pay, hitting 13 of 30 3-pointers.
As a result, Germany shot a scorching 58% overall and scored 50 points in the paint.
The German NBA big men feasted, led by Schroder, who ended with 17 points. Daniel Theis scored 21 points and Franz Wagner had 22.
“If you give up 113 points in a 40-minute game, you’re not going to win many of those,” Austin Reaves, who finished with 21 points, said. “Anytime you lose sucks.”
Kerr went small throughout the tournament, starting Josh Hart as power forward and Jaren Jackson Jr. at centre. Then he kept small, as he had all tournament, going with Paolo Banchero as a backup big man and leaving Walker Kessler, the only real centre chosen for the squad, out of the rotation.
Under the right conditions, Team USA can and has won with this lineup. However, one of those aspects must be an active and break-generating defence.
However, the margin for error was insufficient. Even with an extremely favourable draw that provided it with travel and opponent advantages, there was simply too much size to overcome.
Team USA was without Brandon Ingram, who was out with an upper respiratory infection. It was the team’s first missed game of the tournament due to injury or illness.
Team USA was led by Anthony Edwards, who scored 23 points, and Mikal Bridges, who scored 17.
“I guess we’re expected to win year after year.” “We’re expected to win just because of USA basketball’s history,” said Jalen Brunson, who finished with 15 points and seven assists. “We obviously didn’t come here to play… from the start.”
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