After making two foul shots, Marcelo Huertas cut Argentina’s lead down to one point with 1:28 left in the game. Argentina needed to respond, and they did so by going to Luis Scola who was, as his boss put it, in “video game god mode.”
Scola In The Post
As Argentina brings up the basketball, we see Scola setting up on the ball side elbow. Make sure to focus on him here.
Against Brazil, Slovenia took the lead early and hung on for the win. That doesn’t mean it was uneventful though, as Brazil cut Slovenia’s lead to five twice late in the fourth quarter. Each time Slovenia responded with a clutch three point shot:
Post Threat Opens Up Outside
Slovenia’s offense involves a lot of cut, dives, and post ups. In addition to having that stuff get open looks, it also draws the help side defense, and that is what freed up Slovenia’s first three up by five with right around 3 minutes left.
Up five with around three minutes left, Slovenia is trying to milk the clock. Instead of having their point guard dribbling out the clock, they do it the correct way though in my opinion, they run through their offense. The first step is having a double screen set for their point guard.
Down by two with three seconds left, Brazil had starting point guard Marcelo Huertas heading to the line with a chance to tie the game. Huertas, a 66.7% free throw shooter in the tournament (4-6), missed the first one. With so little time left, there was no way Brazil could make the second foul shot and still have a chance to win. This means that Brazil needed to miss on purpose and secure the rebound to get one final shot at the basket. That is exactly what they were able to pull off.
As Huertas gets the basketball, it is obvious that Team USA is concerned with Leandro Barbosa at the top of the key. Billups is fronting him so he can’t use his speed to grab a long rebound. Despite this, the key matchup (and where Team USA should have really focused their attention) is actually on the far side block where Team USA only has one man to try and secure the rebound.
Yesterday, Team USA faced their first real threat as they faced off against Brazil in a game that should end up deciding who wins their group. They also seemed to struggle for the first time, especially on the offensive end. Brazil shot the ball so well (in the first half at least) that it kept Team USA from getting out on the break and turning this game into a track meet. This meant that Team USA had to have success in the halfcourt, and that didn’t really happen. Let’s look at why they struggled. Two things really hurt Team USA, turnovers and bad shots.
No Movement
Team USA turned the ball over 22 times yesterday against Brazil. That really can’t happen against a team that is going to be able to make you pay for those mistakes (for the most part Brazil did in fact make Team USA pay). Some of those turnovers were questionable (those traveling calls in particular), but a lot of them were self inflicted, due to stagnant offense with everyone really standing around and watching the player with the ball do their own thing:
In this clip Derrick Rose brings the ball up with nobody really doing much off of the basketball. Sure, you have those cross screens at the back but neither Andre Iguodala or Chauncey Billups work all that hard to get open as they are basically jogging through the motions. With neither wing open, Rose is forced to try and get the ball to the middle when the turnover happens.
