SAITAMA, Japan—The U.S. men’s basketball team was less than 24 hours from its first game of the Olympics and still waiting. Three of its most important players hadn’t even arrived in Japan.
It reflected the fundamental problem of a basketball team that features some of the best basketball players in the world. They had barely spent any time together, much less played any basketball together.
Even as the U.S. outlasted Australia 97-78 here at Saitama Super Arena to reach Saturday’s gold-medal game, it was clear that this team will never not be a work in progress. It fell behind badly early. It was disorganized defensively and lost offensively. Just as they have throughout their time in Japan, the Americans looked like a band of extremely tall strangers who happen to be great at basketball and were suddenly tasked with winning Olympic gold.
“They sliced us and diced us,” Team USA coach Gregg Popovich said after the game. “We looked like we’d never played together before. Which in some respects is true, I guess.”
Though the U.S. won by 19, it trailed by as much as 15 before the sheer brilliance of Kevin Durant and the other U.S. superstars overpowered a group of Australians, many of whom don’t play in the NBA. The steep deficit was just another one of the alarm bells that had been ringing since before the Olympic tournament. The U.S. had lost exhibition games to Australia and Nigeria in July, but told itself that things would change once the whole squad was together. They didn’t.
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