MANILA, Philippines — The Americans didn’t shoot well, the ball wasn’t moving at its usual pace from teammate to teammate, and they sure didn’t rebound.
To take it further, their underdog opponent crafted an excellent game plan and nearly executed it to perfection.
But it was going to take that last little bit for Montenegro to upset Team USA, and they didn’t have it.
Anthony Edwards, fresh off of basically guaranteeing Team USA would win the next two, scored all 17 of his points in the second half, Austin Reaves delivered a timely 3 and the Americans survived Montenegro 85-73 in a FIBA World Cup second-round game.
Edwards, who remains the team’s leading scorer at the Cup, overcame an 0-of-5 start in the first half, which ended with Montenegro ahead 39-38.
“I felt like I let my team down in the first half,” Edwards said. “Like, not being aggressive, stopped shooting after I went 0-for-5, so just things that I don’t normally do. So I had to, you know, talk to myself in the locker room to get myself going.”
The Americans, who clinched a spot in the quarterfinals with Lithuania’s win over Greece on Friday, will play Lithuania at 8:40 a.m. ET on Sunday.
Edwards banged home his first jumper at 9:25 in the third quarter and scored again on the ensuing possession. He finished the period with 10 points, clearly on his way after the stern talking to he gave himself, and finished the game 7-of-16 shooting with three rebounds and four turnovers.
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It was still a nip-and-tuck game until there were fewer than three minutes left. Reaves, who scored 12 overall, knocked down a 3 with 2:48 left for a 75-68 advantage — USA’s largest lead to that point. He gave his “ice in the veins” dance as the shot splashed, and boy, he wasn’t kidding. With the way Montenegro kept pace thanks to a massive advantage on the glass and timely baskets from their NBA All-Star, Chicago Bulls big Nikola Vučević, the shot from Reaves was critical.
“Obviously it was a big shot,” Reaves said. “It’s one of those plays (where) if it goes in, I look good. If it doesn’t, you know, everybody’s looking at me sideways.”
Inside of two minutes, Jaren Jackson Jr.’s skyhook, Mikal Bridges’ lay-in, and Edwards’ 2-footer put this one out of reach. Jackson, battling foul trouble in the first half, finished with 11 points but not a single rebound. Bridges scored 10, as did Tyrese Haliburton, who led with six assists off the bench.
It was Haliburton instead of Jalen Brunson whom Team USA head coach Steve Kerr had on the court in the closing minutes.
“I just felt like both Ty and Austin were playing great,” Kerr said. “We went back to Ant and JJ and decided to keep these guys on the floor. And it’s a good lineup. I think we had this lineup down the stretch against Germany (in the exhibition season) if I’m not mistaken. So it’s a lineup that we trust and we like, and they were playing well and, and in a good rhythm they got the job done.”
Now, for the carnage.
It starts with Montenegro and Vučević, who finished with 18 points and 16 rebounds. Those are gaudy numbers and to be expected, perhaps. He is his team’s only current NBA player and a two-time All-Star.
What can’t happen (but did) was Montenegro’s 49-31 overall advantage on the glass. Vučević’s team picked up 22 second-chance points. It sought to use its distinctive size advantage (Josh Hart, who is 6-foot-5, started at the four) and attacked in the post, which led to Jackson’s first-quarter foul trouble.
Montenegro’s only other scorer in double figures was Youngstown State alum Kendrick Perry (14 points), but if not for a whopping 22 turnovers (the Haliburton-Reaves-Hart pressure had something to do with those), it might have pulled off the biggest upset in the country’s basketball history.
“I knew we was going to win,” Edwards said, admitting that his guarantee from Wednesday crossed his mind when this game was close. “Yes, sir. I knew we was going, I knew we was gonna win from the get go. I mean they made a lot of shots.”
Well, no, actually Montenegro only made the same number of field goals as Edwards’ team. The Americans finished 5-of-19 shooting from 3-point range but were just 1-of-9 in the first half. They assisted on 19 of 30 field goals, but the ball stuck in Edwards’ hands, and in the post, more than Kerr, who has praised Team USA’s past ball movement, is used to. They also missed 10 of the 30 foul shots they took, to the chagrin of shooting guru and USA traveling consultant Chip Engelland.
“They’re a tricky team to play against,” Reaves said. “They’re trying to muck up the game. They try to slow it down, make it a low-possession (game) and that’s kind of, you know, the opposite of what we want to do. So we had to figure it out in the second half and we made big plays down the stretch.
“It was good for us to get one of these games and get in tight positions so we know how to handle and play under that adversity.”
Paolo Banchero (eight points, four rebounds) played with his right hand heavily taped, because of a thumb injury suffered against Greece in the first round. Bobby Portis saw extended minutes but shot just 1 of 6.
The Americans are now 4-0, and the worst they could do is finish 4-1 through two rounds. Should they lose to Lithuania, Team USA would win a tiebreaker over Greece because of a first-round win. By losing Friday, Montenegro was eliminated from championship contention.
But had USA lost this one Friday, tiebreaker chaos may have followed. And keep in mind, qualification for the Olympics is on the line at the World Cup too. Team USA has to finish in the top two of all the teams from the two American continents at the Cup, and at present, Canada, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Brazil are still here.
So, yeah, better get to work on those boards. And those 3s. And free throws.
“I thought Montenegro was fantastic,” Kerr said. “That’s a really well-coached team. They had their game plan. Everybody knew their roles and they executed. They got I think (23) offensive boards, tried to pound us inside. But I’m proud of our guys. It was not our night offensively.
“We’ll look at the tape. I didn’t think we moved the ball well at all, and that was why we got into the trouble that we did. But these games are gonna happen, and you have to be able to, to fight through them, and I thought our guys did a great job of that.”
(Photo of Austin Reaves and Anthony Edwards: Stephen Gosling / NBAE via Getty Images)