Team USA is playing NBA basketball, but it's time to adjust for the Olympics

At some level, Team USA’s quest for Olympic gold in men’s basketball is a race against time.

For the NBA stars playing international basketball for the red, white and blue, FIBA rules are just different enough to require some real adjustments in how they play. Given their lack of familiarity — even Team USA’s most experienced internationals have far fewer reps than the players on the European powers — it’s a constant process from the moment summer starts.

In every tournament, the game within the game is whether the most talented team can make enough adjustments to prevail over opponents with far greater familiarity with the playing rules.

In the Tokyo Olympics, they did it — just barely — going from losing tune-ups to Nigeria and Australia to falling to France in the preliminary rounds to knocking off the French by five in the gold medal game. In the 2019 and 2023 World Cups … not so much. The U.S. lost to Serbia and France to finish seventh in 2019; the Americans lost to Lithuania, Germany and Canada to finish fourth in 2023.

One can argue the U.S. was hurt in those World Cup tournaments by a lack of competitive preliminary games to steel them for the knockout rounds. The Olympics are probably better for the U.S. because only 12 teams are invited instead of 32. Due to the limited field, almost all the games are against solid-to-good teams without the sugar highs of a 110-62 win over Jordan to distract them.

By the time the knockout round begins on Aug. 6, the U.S. will have played every gold-medal contender except the French. The exhibition schedule includes Canada, Australia, Serbia and Germany, and they play Serbia again in pool play (along with somewhat lighter fare against South Sudan and Puerto Rico).

The first two of those exhibitions — against Canada and Australia — were much different than what the U.S. is likely to face against Germany, Serbia and France. I feel this perhaps a bit more intently because I’ve watched each of the latter three teams play their tune-ups.

The U.S. is still playing NBA basketball, and it has to adjust to playing FIBA basketball. The first two opponents, while talented, were not notably helpful toward that cause.

In Canada’s case, it’s a shame our friends to the north were the only plausible opponent for a USA basketball exhibition in North America before heading across the ocean; I’d say it was equally bad for Canada. What the two teams needed was to play against FIBA-style players as quickly as possible.

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Instead, two star-studded sides essentially played an NBA game in Las Vegas on Wednesday (I was in attendance, along with a fellow basketball fan named Barry and a few other folks). While the crowd was lit and the U.S. got its desired result, it barely scratched out a point per possession against a rather unimposing Canadian frontcourt and hilariously only took 23 3-point attempts in a FIBA game with Stephen Curry, Devin Booker, Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum on the team.

Things went better against Australia at the offensive end, even with the U.S. still committing far too many turnovers (18) and at times devolving into the iso-ball that was a problem in the World Cup. The Aussies probably have the least shooting of any serious medal contender, making just 4 of 18 triples, but the fact they still scored 92 points is troubling.

This takes us to what’s next, and the adjustment part. Check out the box scores from overseas: France, Serbia and Germany are playing a different game. Even with three All-Star-level centers on the court, France and Serbia combined to take 56 3s and only 51 2s in their exhibition on Friday. Days earlier, the French and Germans had two exhibitions and combined to launch 112 3s and 126 2s.

Even as 3s played a much bigger role, those sides also are playing a much slower, grimier game. The losing side failed to clear 70 points in all three of those contests, and offensive rebounds — the bugaboo of the 2023 U.S. World Cup team — were pivotal (and incredibly frequent) in two of them.

There’s no reason the U.S. can’t play like this, too, and history tells us the American side tends to evolve as the tournament goes along. Getting Kevin Durant back — historically a U.S. cheat code in international play — and harnessing more value from the shorter international 3-point line will help. Unlike last summer, the size issue isn’t a factor with Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo on the roster.

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Embiid probably underscores the American challenge more than anybody. He hasn’t played international basketball at this level, and his discomfort while feeling out the FIBA tune-ups has been palpable. He was brutal against Canada, started slow against Australia and seemed to be better in the second half, but so far, Davis has been a superior option.

However, even in his minutes, little vignettes stick out that make you wonder how the U.S. will adjust at the offensive end.

Here’s an Adebayo-Davis kickout pass when the two shared the court Monday. It was one of many trips in the two exhibitions where the U.S. couldn’t quite master the spacing to get a catch-and-shoot 3. Instead, you almost felt the U.S. side shrug and say, “I guess we’ll take a 20-foot 2.”

That piece is relatively small potatoes, though. In the bigger picture, another clip explains a lot about how different the FIBA attacking style needs to be.

Here’s a post-up by LeBron James on the right block. Do you see what’s different from an NBA post-up? A big man is standing right under the basket, just hanging out. James isn’t going to get a clean shot at the rim even if he beats his man. And worse yet, his man knows this and feels emboldened to press up on him and take away a turnaround jumper as well.

That extra defender at the rim isn’t a thing in the NBA because of the defensive three-second rule, and it changes everything. (Defensively, the U.S. also doesn’t always figure out when it can have that defender hanging out.) A lot of the malaise-y, standing-around possessions that end in Anthony Edwards going one-on-five for a pull-up jumper are a downstream consequence of that guy under the rim taking away a one-on-one blow-by.

The elixir for the help defender in the charge circle problem is quick cutting and ball movement, the type of five-man orchestration that takes time as a unit to master. Contrast Team USA’s offense with some of the possessions from Friday’s France-Serbia game. Watch France’s first play in the second half. The French ping the ball from left to right and back; all five players touch it in rapid succession before the sixth pass of the sequence yields a wide-open corner 3:

The U.S. isn’t capable of a possession like that right now. If the Americans ever get there, nobody will touch them.

The European teams and players the U.S. are about to play have years of experience playing with one another in summer FIBA tournaments, dating back to their teens. Some are NBA players, yes, but they never lose their FIBA sea legs; it’s too ingrained.

Meanwhile, the Americans have three weeks to catch up. They also have more talent, and in the Olympics especially, that has usually proven the difference-maker. But make no mistake: The U.S. side is in a familiar race against the clock to achieve FIBA literacy, and one can argue the first two games put sand through the hourglass without advancing their education much. Serbia awaits next, and one suspects this is when the real adjusting begins.

Required reading

(Top photo of the U.S. vs. Australia: Christopher Pike / Getty Images)