Edwards comes up strong to prevent Montenegrin upset

MANILA (Philippines) - Montenegro showed the United States that the competition will only get stronger, taking a lead at the half, but Anthony Edwards led the charge after the break to for the United States to stay perfect in Manila.

Montenegro earned the respect of the basketball world, as the country with a population of 600,000 battled hard for 40 minutes, staying strong and making their presence felt. Final score: 85-73.

USA's spot in the Quarter-Finals was confirmed after Lithuania beat Greece in the other game of the group.

Turning point: Anthony Edwards had 10 points in the third quarter to put the USA back in front after a 38-37 Montenegrin lead at the break.

With Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton opening up the offense, USA carried a 61-55 lead to the final 10 minutes, but Montenegro stuck around in a two-possession deficit all the way until the final five minutes.

That's when Edwards took over once again, scoring five straight points to keep Montenegro at bay, and once Austin Reaves knocked down his only three-pointer of the game, the gap was up to 75-68 with just 2:44 to play. Montenegro tried and tried again, but could not get over the line.

TCL Player of the Game: Anthony Edwards went scoreless and shot 0-of-5 in the first half, but finished with 17 after completely taking over the game in the second half.

Stats don't lie: With the USA shooting just 5-of-19 from deep, they had to turn to their defense to be the provider of some offense. They forced 22 turnovers, getting a 23-2 edge in fast break points.

Bottom line: Coach Steve Kerr can be happy with the win, but his men shot just 20-of-30 from the free throw line.

Montenegro got another MVP-like performance from Nikola Vucevic, an 18-point, 15-rebound double-double despite getting all sorts of different defenders thrown at him, from Josh Hart through Jaren Jackson Jr and Bobby Portis Jr all the way to Walker Kessler.

Coach Bosko Radovic now needs to prepare his squad for the duel with Greece.

They said: "I am really happy how we opened the game and how we played this game against the United States. They are maybe the best team here in the World Cup, so I'm really proud of our team, of my teammates, the coaching staff, everybody who is with the national team. We showed how we can play against the best teams." - Marko Simonovic, Montenegro

"Small country like Montenegro, 600,000 people, we played tonight maybe one of the best games ever. We played against such a good team, very talented, very athletic, and we were in the game for 35 minutes. In the end, the individual quality of the USA players was the key, they made the shots, we missed the shots." - Bosko Radovic, Montenegro head coach

"Didn't start the game the way we wanted to. It wasn't the prettiest game, but we figured it out. Any time you win, you feel good about it, but we definitely want to go watch some film and see how we can get better and prepare for Lithuania." - Tyrese Haliburton, USA

"They got 22 offensive rebounds, they executed, tried to pound us inside, but I'm proud of our guys. It was not our night offensively, we'll look at the tape, we didn't move the ball well at all, that's why we got into the trouble. These games are going to happen, you have to be able to fight through them." - Steve Kerr, USA head coach

FIBA