LILLE (France) - Just before the Olympics, South Sudan tested the United States in a game which saw them miss a potential game-winner at the buzzer.
That served as a warning sign for Team USA as the two saw each other once again in Group C of the tournament in France, and coach Steve Kerr can be happy with the reaction, as USA grabbed a 103-86 win to move to 2-0.
With this result, they have clinched not only their spot in the Quarter-Finals, but also first position in their group. Puerto Rico are now eliminated from contention for the next phase.
Turning point
The moment Carlik Jones collected the triple-double in their exhibition game in London.
Team USA made it their mission to stop Jones from getting anywhere near similar production, pressuring him completely and giving him extra attention from Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo if he managed to get by his primary defender.
Without Jones on his usual level, South Sudan struggled to get anything going offensively, and their bad offense actually made the United States' offense better.
LeBron James, Kevin Durant and all of the other superstars kept attacking downhill, running away to a double digit advantage in the first quarter and never looking back.
The largest lead was by 21 points, but South Sudan did attempt a comeback, cutting the gap to -11 in the third quarter. It remained an attempt, Anthony Edwards led another strong reply by the defending Olympic champs.
Game hero
Bam Adebayo came off the bench and produced instant offense for coach Kerr, getting 14 points on 6-of-6 shooting, including two three-pointers from both corners, in the first half alone.
He finished the game with 18 points and 7 rebounds, and USA were a +22 team with him on the floor.
Honorable mention: Derrick White with 10 points, shooting 3-of-3 from the field, with 3 steals and 1 block, the usual Derrick White package.
Stats don't lie
Not a lot any team can do when USA get 66 points from the bench. South Sudan had just 14. Oh, for the record, KD, USA All-Time best scorer at the Olympics comes off the bench.
"We've been calling ourselves the bench mob for a long time now. It doesn't matter who's in the lineup, we always seem to figure it out," Bam Adebayo talked about the second unit.
Bottom line
Jayson Tatum made his way to the starting lineup in this one, after sitting out the previous game. Anthony Davis also started, Tyrese Haliburton got six minutes of action in the first half, meaning the only player who was benched for 40 minutes was Joel Embiid.
Kevin Durant was once again coming in as the sixth man and collected 14 points on a 2-of-5 shooting day, making 8-of-9 shots from the free throw line.
LeBron James had 12 points, surpassing the 300 career points mark in Olympic history. To reach Top 10 all-time, he would need to get above 461 points, while Oscar Schmidt is the only player with more than 1000 Olympic points.
As for South Sudan, they fought until the end and ended up losing the game with a smaller margin than Serbia. Points difference could be crucial in the battle for the next round of this tournament.
Nuni Omot was their best player on the day with 24 points, hitting 8-of-12 from the field.
They said
"Now teams are better. The challenge of coming out, locking in and competing every night makes it fun. You don't want anything easy. But we can obviously play a lot better in both games. It's gonna be tough, but obviously all of us 12 are some of the best players in the world, so we can do it. We just gotta lock in." - Anthony Davis, USA
"Think about it, this team didn't even get to competing until like 2017? That's not that long ago. And then, obviously, the history around South Sudan is just incredible and it's inspiring. It's true respect from me, what they've done and what Luol (Deng) has done, and you just gotta respect it." - Bam Adebayo, praising South Sudan Basketball
"The history around South Sudan is just incredible and it's inspiring" - Bam Adebayo
"This is the fastest team in the tournament that we're gonna play. So we wanted to match up, and they made 14 threes against us in London so the whole game today was gonna be about switching, staying in front of people, not letting them break us down, so we just went with a change in the lineup. That's how we're gonna do this. Whatever we need to do to win each game, that's what we're gonna do. For this game, it just felt like that was the lineup that made the most sense." - coach Steve Kerr explaining Embiid's DNP
"The beauty of USA Basketball, we have more great players than any other country. Other countries, they have some of the best players in the world now, that's how the game has grown. But we have more great players, and that's our strength. We can lean on all those great players, depending on matchups, depending on how we wanna play, who we're playing, and every single guy's capable of coming out there and taking over a game." - coach Kerr again
"Other countries, they have some of the best players in the world now, that's how the game has grown. But we have more great players, and that's our strength." - coach Kerr
"In London, they weren't prepared for us, and we came in there and we tried to hit them on the chin, and almost had a knockout. Now, this time, they were prepared, they were ready, they were ready for the punches we threw, and they blocked them, and they threw haymakers at us. That's a fight for you. But we got knocked down and kept on getting up, we kept on fighting, we kept on being resilient. We didn't come out with the outcome that we wanted, but at the end of the day, I'm proud of my guys." - South Sudan head coach Royal Ivey
Quick notes
USA have scored 100+ points in both of their first two games at the Olympics for the third time (1992, 2016)
South Sudan became the first African team to outscore the USA in a single half at the Olympics, winning the second half 50-48
Kevin Durant has moved into the Top 10 on the all-time scoring list at the Olympics, 472 points scored placing him ninth on that list
Kevin Durant's Olympic run of consecutive games with 20+ points stops at five with this one (14pts)
LeBron James is the fifth player with more than 100 career assists at the Olympics since 1976. He's up to 102, joining Sarunas Jasikevicius (Lithuania, 160), Sarunas Marciulionis (Lithuania, 121), Toni Kukoc (Croatia, 112), and Emanuel Ginobili (Argentina, 107)
Carlik Jones has scored 37 points across his two appearances at the Olympics, the third most by an African player in first two games, behind Nigeria's Jordan Nwora (43pts) and Angola's Carlos Morais (38pts)
FIBA