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The United States men’s basketball team has lost just four exhibition games since 1992, including two within 48 hours. After being bowled over by Nigeria in their first Olympic show on Saturday night, the US team fell to Australia on Monday 91-83, in Las Vegas.
The United States is now 54-4 in exhibition games since 1992.
Damian Lillard led the way for the United States with 22 points and four rebounds. Kevin Durant, who was 6 of 13 on the pitch but was cold for most of the game, scored 17 points while adding four boards.
Along with Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Matisse Thybulle, Aron Baynes, Dante Exum and Matthew Dellavedova, the Australians have more NBA talent than the Nigerian team. Yet this is another huge upheaval for Americans.
Mills was huge for Australia, especially late, scoring 10 of their 22 points in the fourth quarter as the United States just couldn’t get enough saves to sustain their own hot 3-point shot in the final. straight line.
“Defense. All defense,” Mills said after the game when asked what he attributed the Aussies’ victory to. “We understand that in order to be truly competitive and achieve our goals, we have to hang our hat on defense.” [against] a team like the USA [that can get] in transition and [make] easy layups and dunks, for us that was pretty impressive in our second game. “
The United States team struggled in both exhibition games to run the stretch. It’s a bit normal considering that this team didn’t have a lot of time to play together. But getting the right shots at the right time is something Americans are going to have to focus on moving forward. In addition, the defense must recover.
The United States will play one final tune-up against Argentina on Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET – streaming via fuboTV (Try for free) – before heading to Tokyo for the start of the Olympics where the team is paired up. with France, Iran and the Czech Republic in the preliminary group. They will begin their Olympic campaign on July 25 against France. Winner of the last three Olympic tournaments, the last time the American men’s team did not win gold was in 2004 when they finished third with bronze, behind Argentina (gold) and Italy (silver).
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