Team USA was able to rest their starters for more than half of the game for the second straight day as the American National Team took care of Tunisia 92-57, capping off group play with a 5-0 record. Kevin Durant, Lamar Odom, Andre Iguodala and Chauncey Billups all played under 18 minutes while Derrick Rose, the team’s other starter, played just 21 minutes.
“Congratulations to (Tunisia),” Coach K said after the game. “We thought in our pool, every team played hard. It was a great pool and Tunisia’s play was symbolic of the type of hard play on every possession … they showed that. It translated to an outstanding first half for them. To talk about how hard they played, you get 25 offensive rebounds, it means you never give up on the ball.”
The Americans had one of the best defensive performances of the entire tournament in this game as they held Tunisia to 27% shooting from the floor and beyond the arc. Team USA also accumulated 15 combined steals and blocks which fueled their offensive onslaught.
The only issue from today’s performance arose in the rebounding department as Tunisia secured a total of 25 offensive rebounds. That’s 25 O-boards on 52 missed shots, which means they were able to get the ball back on nearly half of their misses. They did have a larger than normal amount of shots to rebound but still, Team USA should of had this big of a deficit in the rebounding department.
Guard Eric Gordon led Team USA with his second scoring outbreak of the tournament as he went off for 21 points on seven-of-10 shooting (four-of-seven from three). with three steals. Eric has had a couple of ineffective games but when he has been on he’s been an invaluable contributor to the team. Gordon’s previous rival for the final spot, Stephen Curry, also had a good game as he showed off why he was on the team. Curry had 13 points on five-of-eight shooting with three three’s, three rebounds and two assists.
“I just had a lot of open shots and I had to knock them down,” Gordon said after the game. “That was the thing … we played really good defense and came down the floor in transition. We had a lot of guys that were open and luckily I was the one that was able to knock down the 3-point shots.”
Durant did play a limited amount of minutes but the scoring machine was still able to put up 14 points on 56% shooting. Russell Westbrook also scored 14 points (67% shooting) while Andre Iguodala led the team with six rebounds.
Team USA will play their next game next Monday in the win or go home round of the tournament. As the #1 seed in Group B, they are slotted to play the #4 seed in Group A, which is currently Angola. Angola, if you remember, was on the wrong end of a 94-44 blowout against Serbia earlier this week .
