USA Basketball loses to Germany in FIBA World Cup semifinals
USA Basketball will get its long-anticipated FIBA World Cup showdown with Canada on Sunday, but the North American neighbors will be playing for bronze rather than gold.
Displaying poise from start to finish in a nip-and-tuck semifinal, Germany upset USA Basketball, 113-111, at Mall of Asia Arena in the Philippines on Friday, ending the Americans’ hopes of reclaiming World Cup supremacy. The Germans will face Serbia, which knocked off Canada, 95-86, in Friday’s other semifinal, for gold Sunday.
The victory was Germany’s first over the United States since NBA stars began competing in international tournaments at the 1992 Olympics.
After stifling Italy’s offense in the quarterfinals, USA Basketball couldn’t find reliable defensive answers against a German squad that featured four NBA players: Dennis Schröder, Franz Wagner, Mo Wagner and Daniel Theis. But the Americans’ biggest challenge was stopping Andreas Obst, a smooth-shooting Bayern Munich guard who scored a game-high 24 points and hit a clutch three-pointer to help seal the win.
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U.S. Coach Steve Kerr said his team wasn’t “ever able to make [Germany] feel us defensively,” and he bemoaned an early lack of energy on the defensive glass that helped Obst establish a rhythm.
“I thought [Obst] was the key to the game,” Kerr said. “He was one of our keys going in. We didn’t get him under control, and that really hurt us.”
After falling into a quick 7-2 hole, the Americans trailed 25-15 in the first quarter before battling back to take a halftime lead. The Germans responded well after halftime, rebuilding a double-digit lead in the third quarter and controlling the action with a diverse scoring attack.
When USA Basketball committed too many defenders on Theis inside, Germany moved the ball to find open shooters. Schröder and Wagner consistently found driving lanes past USA Basketball’s perimeter defenders, and Obst shot 6 for 11 from the field and 4 for 8 from beyond the arc.
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Germany, the tournament’s lone remaining unbeaten team at 7-0, conquered its late-game execution issues to secure the win. The Germans conceded a 22-5 closing run to lose to USA Basketball in an Aug. 20 exhibition, and they nearly blew a 10-point lead in the final three minutes in a narrow win over Latvia in the quarterfinals.
This time, Germany’s offense avoided devolving into stilted isolation play or hurried mistakes. When Anthony Edwards hit a three-pointer and Austin Reaves made two free throws to cut Germany’s lead to 108-107 with 90 seconds left, Obst drilled a three-pointer in the right corner to push the lead back to four. Isaac Bonga then blocked a Mikal Bridges drive on the Americans’ ensuing possession, setting up Schröder for a dagger midrange jumper with 40 seconds left.
“[Obst] is one of the best shooters in FIBA,” Germany Coach Gordie Herbert said. “He can do more than shoot, as you saw tonight. He can drive and make a play. He creates space. He had a huge game.”
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The United States, which entered the tournament as a heavy favorite, kept fighting in the closing seconds, but Edwards threw a pass out of bounds with 27.2 seconds left to effectively end the comeback bid. In addition to some untimely turnovers in the second half, the Americans fouled three-point shooters on multiple occasions to gift the Germans extra points at the free throw line.
Kerr’s first run as coach will end with a third- or fourth-place finish, an improvement over USA Basketball’s seventh-place finish at the 2019 FIBA World Cup but one that will fall short of the program’s gold-or-bust expectations.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our guys for how hard they played,” Kerr said. “This team is very worthy of winning a championship. We just didn’t get it done. … The game has been globalized over the last 30 years or so. These games are difficult. This is not 1992 anymore.”
Germany’s 113 points were its highest-scoring output of the tournament and the most USA Basketball, which fell to 5-2, conceded in its seven games. Six German players, including Obst, finished in double figures. Franz Wagner finished with 22 points and five rebounds, and Theis added 21 points and seven rebounds. Schröder bounced back from a poor showing against Latvia to finish with 17 points and nine assists.
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“Every run that we had, they had timely buckets,” said Brunson, who finished with 15 points and seven assists. “We’re expected to win year in and year out because of the history of USA Basketball. That’s just the outside opinion. We didn’t come ready to play from the start.”
Edwards scored a team-high 23 points for USA Basketball, but he shot just 2 for 8 from deep. While Reaves added 21 points off the bench, Tyrese Haliburton suffered through an uncharacteristically poor shooting night, and USA Basketball’s second unit wasn’t able to dictate the action as well as it has through much of the tournament.
The Americans were outrebounded 30-28, and center Jaren Jackson Jr., the team’s defensive anchor, was largely ineffective, finishing with eight points, three rebounds and no blocks in 19 minutes.
Germany, which won bronze at last summer’s EuroBasket tournament, will claim its first FIBA World Cup medal since it took bronze in 2002. A win over Serbia would cement its first gold medal at the Olympics or the FIBA World Cup.
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“From the moment we got together, I think everybody felt that we let one slip away last year and that we were better than the bronze that we got,” Franz Wagner said. “From the first day that we got together this summer, we felt like we were a special group and we could win against any team.”
USA Basketball will seek its fourth medal in its past five FIBA World Cup appearances when it plays Canada for bronze. The Canadians have never medaled in the tournament.
“This is going to sting for a little bit,” Brunson said. “We’re going to go back and eat, wake up, and tomorrow’s going to be a new day. This is a tough loss. We’ve got to use it as fuel.”
In Friday’s other semifinal, Atlanta Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic scored a game-high 23 points for Serbia, which placed five players in double figures, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander battled early foul trouble and finished with 15 points, nine assists and two rebounds for Canada in the loss.
Despite playing without two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, Serbia advanced to the championship game with a 6-1 record thanks to a well-oiled offense that managed to shoot 62.1 percent against the Canadians. With the win, the Serbians clinched their first FIBA World Cup medal since they took silver in 2014.
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