Team USA Men’s Olympic Basketball Loses Second-Consecutive Game – Deadline
After an exhibition loss to Nigeria over the weekend shocked the basketball world, the U.S. Males’s Olympic crew misplaced one other exhibition recreation on Monday, this time to Australia.
Now, these are simply exhibition video games forward of the Tokyo Olympics. They don’t formally depend for something. However successful has come to appear just like the U.S. Crew’s birthright. It’s the most profitable crew in worldwide competitors ever, successful medals in all 18 Olympic tournaments it has entered, together with 15 golds. On condition that report, dropping exhibition video games to Australia and Nigeria is stunning.
It’s much more stunning when one considers that the U.S. is led by Kevin Durant, roundly thought-about to be both the greatest or the second-best participant on the planet, whereas Australia is fronted by Patty Mills, an Austrlian-born professional who rides the bench for the San Antonio Spurs.
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Team USA Basketball Stunned By Loss To Team Nigeria In Olympics Warm-Up Exhibition
According to ESPN, “Team USA had been 54-2 in exhibition video games since professionals began enjoying in 1992. They’ve now doubled these losses in a span of three days.”
The U.S. led on the half 46-37 on Monday, however Australia scorched the U.S. 32-18 within the third quarter to steer 69-64 heading into the fourth. Australia was forward 86-82 with 3:14 left to play when the U.S. referred to as a timeout. Durant missed one among two subsequent free throws, making it 86-83. Australia answered proper again to steer 88-83. The U.S. failed to attain within the last minutes of the sport, with Australia occurring to make the ultimate rating 91-83.
Damian Lillard of the Portland Path Blazers led the U.S. with 22 factors, together with 6-of-11 from three. Mills additionally had 22 for Australia. Durant had simply 17 factors.
Followers shortly took to Twitter calling on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who led U.S. males’s nationwide basketball crew to a few Olympic Gold medals, to return again and help forward of Tokyo 2020 as an alternative of Spurs coach Greg Popovich.
Coach pop the actual downside they want the 🐐 coach Ok https://t.co/S4PqQEp8G5
— 🦇 (@lil_nelson11) July 13, 2021
Crew Nigeria, basking in its second of glory, piled on with a tweet congratulating Australia.
.@BasketballAus Welcome.
— D’Tigers | Nigeria Basketball (@NigeriaBasket) July 13, 2021
Popovich, for his half, was not pleased with the road of questioning on the post-game press convention.
2012 crew went 8-0 successful by a mean of 32 factors, that’s most positively blowing groups out lol. Coach Ok> pop? 🤔 https://t.co/kPzg3NW444
— J from faculty (@JT__erskine) July 13, 2021
The U.S. Males will tackle Argentina at 3 p.m. PT on July 13, adopted by a rematch with Australia at 3 p.m. on July 16 and Spain at 6 p.m. PT on July 18 earlier than the crew departs for Tokyo on July 19.
