Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

Curry obviously shot out of his mind, and Embiid's stat line looks great, but the latter especially looked gassed in second and fourth quarters. He just did not actively fight to get back on Jokic. Also, one of the side effects of playing Curry 33 minutes and Booker 24 is that the overall defensive pressure is down - Serbia finished with 7 turnovers. The U.S. had been forcing 14 a game coming into this.

 

We had to put LBJ on Joker for a few possessions in order to save Embiid’s legs. I still don’t think that our defense is very coherent — every team runs a high pick and roll as a base set and we constantly are confused. I also think we should have pressured the hell out of their non-Joker dribblers.

Not saying that France will be easy, but we have such a talent advantage at every position and can get open 3s when we want.

 

Nobody knew. AP didn’t know.

Better question: How are you allowed to compete with COVID-19?

 

Kevin Durant was asked about patriotism and playing for Team USA. His answer should be on our dollar bill.

"A lot of bullshit happens in our country, but a lot of great things happen too."

 

There is no other player I want to have the ball more than Durant.

USA’s big problem down the stretch was grabbing the ball. Embid is great, but that fucker just can’t grab a lose ball.

 

The contested jumper to put us up 4 was the crucial shot.

 

It's hard to fault Kerr too much because the U.S. came back and won, but it felt like they got down big and then chased the points the whole game. Like, you have three quarters to work with - You can still play the defensive terror lineup of White, Davis and others, especially since Serbia didn't really have ballhandling wizards. Kerr seems to favor Holiday though.

 

Kerr's a veteran coach, and they favor veterans. White was definitely more of an asset for the Celtics this year than was Holiday, not that the latter was a slouch by any means.

 

Why not bring in the "defensive terror unit" for 4 minute stretches during which time you slap on the 94-foot pedal to the metal full court press the world has seldom seen?

Let LeBron, Curry and KD get a half quarter off, while "Unit X" is bringing the flames of hell on defense.

Jokic played 38 minutes today. How do you think he would have been holding up in the fourth quarter if 12-16 of those minutes had been against full court full denial pressure??

 

Tirico led off the primetime coverage by talking about Lyles having Covid.

 

I can ask Google but folks are here are more knowledgeable: why are the fencers tethered?