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Things are heating up for Team USA.
Head coach Gregg Popovich had a tense trade with Joe Vardon of The Athletic after an embarrassing second exhibition loss in three days, this time to Australia.
“You asked the same kind of question the last time you assumed things that weren’t true. Popovich said before Vardon stepped in. “Can I finish? Can I complete my declaration? Are you going to let me finish my statement or not?
“When you’ve made statements in the past about just blowing up those other teams – number one, you don’t respect other teams. I told you the same thing last time, we’ve had very close games against four of the five countries in all of these tournaments.
Popovich, 72, has had similar run-ins with the press during his 25 years as Spurs coach. He was short with reporters during in-game interviews and strained himself with the media after games.
Popovich doesn’t have long to figure out how to get this gifted team, which has now lost to Nigeria (90-87) and Australia (91-83), to freeze.
Against the Australians, Damian Lillard scored 22 points for the US team behind a 6 of 11 performance behind the arc, Kevin Durant added 17 points and Bradley Beal scored 12 points. These are the only three players from the Popovich club to have scored in double digits. Jayson Tatum missed his six three-point attempts on a 4-of-12 night.
Patty Mills led the way for Australia with 22 points, while Joe Ingles added 17. Matisse Thybulle and Chris Goulding scored 23 combined points off the bench, and the team shot almost 53 percent.
“So good teams don’t blow themselves up. There are certain matches that could happen in one of these tournaments like the World Championships or the Olympics where someone blows themselves up, but usually nobody blows up anyone for good teams ” Popovich told Vardon. “So when you make a statement like that, you assume that’s what’s going on. And that’s incorrect.
Since they started using professionals in 1992, this is the first time Team USA has lost back-to-back exhibition matches.
The US team will face Argentina on Tuesday night in an attempt to break their losing streak.
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