USA Basketball vs. Australia: Exhibition Match Highlights

The United States men's national basketball team has played 68 exhibition matches in its history

dating back to 1992, going 64-4 in those matches, and those four losses took place in 2004

most recently twice in the pre-Olympics tour in 2021 to Nigeria 90-87 and Australia 91-83

As a matter of fact, Team USA would play Team Australia again today in their second pre-Olympic

exhibition match of five. And stick with me as we break down this game because it may look like

it's over early, but the title that you read clicking on this video proves Team USA almost

gives this up. So let's get right into this one. Steve Kerr switched up the starting lineup from

last exhibition match versus Team Canada. It's actually exactly what I had said in our breakdown

of that game swapping out drew holiday and devin booker for anthony edwards and jason tatum and then

team australia starting five is josh giddy dyson daniels patty mills nick k and jock londale lebron

hits this corner three to start and then jock londale actually scores the first five points

for team australia but it was anthony edwards early that was once again the best player on the

floor. Here's a three from him that would get him going, scoring 11 points in the first couple

minutes of the game on four for four from the field, including this three off a pass from LeBron

a floater, and this sick crossover step back three. Team USA is looking great early with this switch up

in the first unit, up 19 to 13. The second unit would come in that consists of Tyrese Halliburton

Drew Holiday, Devin Booker, Bam Adebayo, and Anthony Davis, and they would extend that lead

to 32-21 at the end of the first quarter. As we cut through to the end of the second quarter

Team USA is up 46-30. This isn't really close. Joel Embiid hits a three. He was much better today

and played within the flow a lot better on offense, especially as the game went on. And then Anthony

Edwards has this sick assist to make it 51-30. Ant would miss his three shots in the second quarter

So he still has those 11 points. He scored to start the game and team USA is up 53 to 37 at half

But honestly, it doesn't even feel like that close of a ball game team USA has been dominating the entire game

So far coach Kerr will have the second unit start the second half and bam has a nice jumper here After some really nice ball movement and action Anthony Davis was incredible in this game Devin Booker scores five straight points to increase the lead to 62

And then look at this Anthony Davis block. Again, he was incredible in this game. He would finish a team high 17 points and 14 rebounds

Now this is only the second exhibition match. These guys have barely played together

So I'm still holding out hope. Joel Embiid continues to be able to mesh with these guys

But right now, Team USA looks much better with Anthony Davis on the floor over Joel Embiid

He was by far Team USA's best player today. Great play to get Steph Curry open here, but he would struggle today going just one for six from the field with just three points

At this point, Team USA is up 67 to 45. And with the starters back in, Team Australia goes on a 10-0 run, cutting the deficit to just 12

And during the stretch, Team USA turns it over like five to six times. These starters are just not taking care of the ball

Anthony Edwards finally relieved some of the bleeding with this and one here

putting Team USA back up 15. And they finished the third quarter pretty strong, 76-61 going into the fourth

With Team USA up 81-63 very early in the fourth quarter, Team Australia would cut that lead to just six points, 86-80 within just five minutes of play

With Josh Giddey being a main reason they would do so, scoring seven of those points during that run

Team Australia has the ball down six points with just 337 left when Patty Mills misses this three-pointer

And then Tyrese Halliburton makes back-to-back threes on back-to-back possessions, which at that point felt like the dagger

Team USA was up 92-80 with just a little over two minutes to go

But instead, Team Australia just continued to fight. Jock Landale gets this bucket here, making it a nine-point lead. And then Team USA is very lucky

Josh Giddey misses this layup after another turnover. After a miss, Tyrese Halliburton three

Josh Giddey again scores with 107 left on the clock. It's just a seven-point lead at this point

Thankfully, Team USA has Devin Booker who gets this offensive rebound and hits this jumper

extending it back to nine points with 32 seconds to go. And although at this point Team USA had one

They didn't close out the game again in very professional fashion. Team Australia scores within just two seconds following that timeout

And then Devin Booker gets a five seconds back to the basket call on him

And then again, I don't know what Team USA is doing. Within a second on an out play Team Australia would score Jock Landale cut to the basket and he gets an and one making this just a four point game with nine seconds to go Team USA does hold on they win 98 to 92 but honestly guys

this was not a good showing for Team USA. If we take a look at the box score the starting lineup

had pretty bad plus minus it was the second unit that really won the game for Team USA

With every starter but Joel Embiid having a negative plus minus then if we look at guys on

the bench like Devin Booker, Tyrese Halliburton, Bam Adebayo, they all had a plus minus of plus nine

But it was really Anthony Davis that was the best player for Team USA today. I said that earlier

I'm going to echo it again. He went six for 12 from the field, one for one from three, 14 rebounds with seven of them being offensive and finishing with a team high 17 points

Devin Booker was right behind him, 16 points. And then Anthony Edwards with that quick 11 early

He cooled off afterwards, but finished with 14. Joel Embiid and LeBron James finished with 10

Like I said, Steph did not have a good game. He goes just one for six from the field with just three points

And I got to say, Bam Adebayo was really good as well. Four for five from the field, 10 points and some incredible defense

He's so versatile on the defensive end. On Team Australia's side, you had Josh Giddey, who was probably their best player

7 for 18 from the field, 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists. But Jock Landale was really good as

well. 9 for 12 from the field, 20 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, which is super disheartening

because Jock Landale is a below average NBA player. He was not good in Phoenix last year

and the bigs should have eaten him up. And then Dyson Daniels finishes with 14 points on 6 for 8

from the field and three steals. I obviously don't mean to over sensationalize an exhibition

match. However, team Australia is nowhere near the talent that team Canada, team Serbia, team France

or team Germany has. And I think you can chalk a lot of this up to it being an exhibition match

being up 20 points and just being kind of lazy and lackadaisical with the ball. Like I said

team USA had a bunch of turnovers during that run, but at the same time, I feel like if you

are Team USA, if you're this version of Team USA, you want to destroy every opponent you play. You

want to put yourself in history alongside the teams like the Dream Team and the Redeem Team

And giving up a lead like this to Team Australia, albeit an exhibition match

only beating them by six is not going to cut it And so I think with me I just have a super high standard for Team USA So showings like these even though it is something that doesn really mean much

still dishearten me a little bit. They got to continue to figure it out. Of course

they haven't played together much, but neither have any of these Team USAs in history. And they

figured it out. I mean, the Dream Team, they only played one pre-Olympic match, but they beat France

by like 40. The 2008 Redeem team, they played five pre-Olympic matches. They did only beat

Australia by 11, but they defeated everyone else handily. And so I guess I say all this to say

Team USA plays Serbia in just two days. They need to defeat Serbia by double digits minimum

They cannot have a loss before the Olympics, or I'm telling you in this social media age

the memes are going to start rolling and pressure is going to start setting in for this team. Of

course they should win Olympic gold. There is no team on the national stage talent-wise that can

gel with them, but when you look at a team like Serbia playing against France the other day in

their first tune-up of the Olympic season, they look like they gel so well together, and I think

that is something that I really admire about this European style of play. These guys do not need the

ball in their hands. Offense flows so well. Everyone's moving without the ball and being

effective without the ball and i felt like i saw a decent amount of that from team usa today but has

to continue getting better ant was getting blitzed a lot in the second half he's got to give up that

ball there's plenty other guys on the team that can score hopefully we're getting kevin durant back

soon it sounds like he's not too far away derrick white did not play today probably just because

he just got named to the roster not too long ago like i said in my last video guys thank you so much

for the most recent support on the channel. These last three videos have been going absolutely bonkers

and I'm going to be covering everything that goes down during this Olympic season

I mean, look at this. We're covering an exhibition match from Team USA. We are just a few weeks away from the Olympics

It's going to be a fun one. Like I did in my last video, I'm gonna throw up the Olympic groups

You tell me what stands out with these teams. Maybe some hot takes you have

I'm super excited. It can't come soon enough. And if you missed my last video on Jokic bullying Wemby in a France versus Serbia pre-Olympic tune-up

check that out here. Subscribe, comment below. Feel free to even join the Discord if you're watching this far

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As always, thank you guys so much for watching, and we'll see you on the hardwood