Team USA vs. Team Canada: 2024 Olympic Exhibition Match

last night team usa had their first exhibition match gearing up for the 2024 olympics in just

a few weeks and just a few days ago when practice officially began for team usa

anthony edwards had this to say about being the alpha on the team

on us i mean y'all might look at it differently i don't look at it because

i'm gonna be myself uh shoot my shots uh play defense and you know they gotta fit in to play

around me uh what you think okay now of course he's kind of talking tongue in cheek a little bit

he even mentioned later about kevin durant being the guy they need to go to at the end of games

However, the 22-year-old is very confident, and he proved last night in the first game that he meant everything he said with being the number one option

So let's get right into it. Team USA versus Team Canada. This is the first of five exhibition matches gearing up for July 27th when group play will start

Team USA's coaching staff consisted of Steve Kerr and assisted by Mark Few, Tyron Liu, and Eric Spolstra decided to go with Steph Curry, LeBron James, Drew Holiday, Devin Booker, and Joel Embiid for their starting lineup

This definitely wouldn't have been my first choice. I would have loved to see Jason Tatum in there and Anthony Edwards over Drew Holiday and Devin Booker

Team Canada is coached by Jordy Fernandez, an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings the past couple years

He coached them to a bronze medal in the FIBA World Cup last year, and he is now the new head coach for the Brooklyn Nets

And Team Canada's starting lineup consisted of Shea Gilgis-Alexander, Jamal Murray, Dylan Brooks, RJ Barrett, and Dwight Powell

And for this first unit for Team USA, it was an awful first quarter

They started out with just one point in the first four minutes, missing their first six shots

Team Canada gets out to an 11-1 lead early. The shots they generated were not very good

There was not much ball movement or dribble penetration. And quickly, Anthony Davis would sub in for Joel Embiid

Steph Curry gets this three to get Team USA on the board

And then Steve Kerr goes immediately to his second unit. Anthony Edwards, Jason Tatum, Tyrese Halliburton, and Bam Adebayo alongside Anthony Davis

This second unit was much better immediately. Check out this layup from Anthony Edwards 12 and then this pass off of what looked to be a pull jumper to Bam Adebayo Team USA would still be down 21 at the end of the first quarter turning the ball over eight times to start

The second unit would stay out there to start the second quarter. Anthony Edwards just immediately and continually looks like the best player on the floor

hits the spank shot, and then a pull-up, bringing the lead down to just one point

And at this point, the first unit would finally get things rolling. Devin Booker hits the spank shot

LeBron James, 39 years old, blocks this shot and Devin Booker hits a three. Team USA finally up 28-23

And then after another Anthony Edwards pull up and this Jason Tatum drive with a dunk to end the

half, Team USA would be up 41-32. In the second half, Steph's three here puts Team USA up 13-50-37

And then the most iconic play of the night would occur, a Stephen Curry lob to LeBron James

These are two of the best to ever do it. And it's the first time they have ever played together in their long careers

In 2016 in Rio, neither one of them would be on the Olympic team

And same with 2021 in Tokyo. And afterwards, you can see Steph and LeBron

They're super excited to be playing together. You love to see it. I'm happy it finally happened

But we have to talk about Joel Embiid. He fouls out in just 12 minutes of play

In these FIBA 40-minute games, you only get five fouls. He's got to figure it out

He gets this unsportsmanlike conduct about 40 seconds before he fouls out

And Joel just has to learn to play together with guys of his caliber

It's almost like he was playing out there like he was still the number one option

You have to play within the flow. You have to keep the ball moving. And remember that almost every player out there is on the same level as you

This is not Philadelphia. Anthony Edwards then hits this three to end the quarter

and team usa is now up 15 69 54 i have to remind you this team canada team is a very good team with

longevity they have continuity they just played together last summer winning the bronze medal like

i mentioned earlier with a lot of the same players sga was on that team dylan brooks was on that team

nakeel alexander walker kelly olinick and of course lou dort and rj barrett as well and also

if we just take a quick comparison between last year's 2023 fiba world cup united states team

that fell short of medaling versus this year's Olympic team. This is such a massive upgrade and

something we will eventually talk about, which is, is this team USA one of the best of all time

What would they have to do to compete with a 1992 dream team a 2008 redeem team But just in terms of on paper and pure talent I think there is at least an argument to be made there that this team could have the most talent of any in Olympic history of course it hurts that

Kawhi is no longer on the team but still we don't even have Kevin Durant back yet I also want to say

Tyrese Halliburton was awesome in this game he only scored two points but he had a team high six

assists which is pretty wild when you're full of superstars in just 20 minutes of play and he also

had four steals team usa beats this team canada 86 to 72 anthony edwards leads the way with a team

high 13 points on 60 shooting but to me it's more than that immediately he just looked like the best

player on team usa he was playing in rhythm he wasn't forcing he was moving without the ball

that first unit's terrible start will get better of course but honestly joellen bead like i said

earlier he's got to figure it out there was too much standing around too much pounding the ball

trying to get to his spot, posting up. And I think some of that will come

with playing together more. That first unit has obviously so much star power

but I do think Steve Kerr, Eric Spolstra, Tyronn Lue can figure out a little bit of a better cohesive first unit

I do have to say though, if Joel Embiid doesn't want to continually be a meme

on the internet, he has to figure something out. The fact he fouled out in 12 minutes of play

and played as poorly as he did while getting scrutinized for playing for Team USA

I'm not saying it's fair at the same time. Like Joel Embiid grew up here

I understand why he wants to play for Team USA. However, he's a super easy target

The internet already does not like him. And so he better figure it out quick

or else he's just gonna become the butt of every joke this entire Olympic season

Drew Holiday did a fantastic job on SGA, holding him to three for 10 from the field

Jamal Murray was just two for eight as well. Anthony Davis had 10, 11, and four blocks

A night and day difference with him on the floor. versus joellen bead team usa's next exhibition match will take place against australia on july

15th they have a couple of nba players josh green dante exum josh giddy and dyson daniels and then

they'll face off versus nikola yokich in serbia on july 17th south sudan on july 20th and germany

on july 22nd we're currently just a little over two weeks from the beginning of olympic group play

And guys, we are going to be covering the Olympics from start to finish here

We'll be making videos about Team France, who I think, I said this in my Cooper flag video

from yesterday, I really do think has a chance to win gold. Wemby and Rudy Gobert are terrifying

together. And then you have Giannis, who's carrying Greece to these Olympics. Of course

Nikola Jokic on Serbia I think the biggest question though with Team USA was were these players going to be able to play together and initially it looked awful but with that second unit it started to look a

lot better. That first unit picked it up and so I have a lot more confidence even though it's just

one exhibition match that Team USA can reach their full potential in these Olympics but also I think

it's okay to say that 1992 and 2008 did not have teams like Team Canada and even Team France. Just

the level of talent on those teams to me outweighs the teams of the past however the united states

still needs to take care of business they should handle every team they play i'm not saying they

have to beat team france or team canada by 30 like these teams have actually really talented

players on them but they should be able to handle every team they play by 10 to 15 points and if

they can't they're not even going to be close to being in contention for one of the best olympic

teams of all time. But I do think this is a profound moment in national team history. I mean

LeBron James is 39 years old. Steph Curry's 36. Kevin Durant's 35. This really is like the

changing of the guard and probably the last Olympics for guys like this. So it would be

really cool for them to go out with some of the younger guys on this roster, becoming one of the

best national teams of all time and as an american of course you should want this i'm not sure why

a lot of people like to crap on team usa and are hoping that they fail almost but regardless man

that's the internet this team is unbelievably talented we'll see what they can do over the

next couple weeks we're still waiting on kevin durant to return from his calf injury kawhi

leonard has left to focus on rehabbing for the nba season we now have derrick white as a replacement

and stay tuned as well because las vegas summer league starts this saturday we've already had a

couple of fun showings in these little tiny summer leagues leading up to it with performances like

khalil ware going for 26 and 11 and zach ed looking fantastic dylan jones has been hooping too

so the summer league season is going to be a blast the olympic season is going to be a blast

this is a super fun off season in what is usually more of a dry time of year so let's enjoy it

together i'll be making a video on almost everything that goes down thank you guys for

watching if you missed my cooper flag video scrimmaging versus team usa performing as the

best player for team select check that out here and if you're into more historical videos i have

this sherry west video where i went through broke down every single year of his career thank you

guys so much for watching this video look out for these future videos in the next couple days

and as always we'll see you on the hardwood