FIBA World Cup 2023: Won easily Slovenia without Luka Doncic, the US team still reveals dangerous weaknesses?
Entering the second friendly match before the 2023 FIBA World Cup, the US team faced a quality representative from Europe, Slovenia. This promises to be an interesting competition… until the fans hear that Luka Doncic will not play.
The Slovenian coaching staff said that due to the tight schedule and Doncic with a slight knee pain, they decided to remove the All-Star and All-NBA defender in this match.
Without a 24-year-old conductor, Slovenia could not make it difficult for the US team even though they had the advantage of home field and did not have to move as long as the opponent (the match took place in Spain).
Coach Steve Kerr's army shows strength in both attack and defense, showing the diversity of people and gameplay. They started the match with a 7-0 run, then took the lead to double digits before winning the match 92-62.
Anthony Edwards continues to be the top scorer with 15 points. Behind him is Jalen Brunson with 11 points, 8 assists and 4 rebounds. Tyrese Haliburton contributed 10 points and 6 assists. Austin Reaves scored 10 points and 5 rebounds.
No individual is too dominant on the US side due to the uniformity in the squad. Coach Steve Kerr continued to have the opportunity to rotate all 12 players and nearly every individual contributed.
Besides the positive points, an ominous statistic that can create a big problem for the US basketball team is the relatively low success rate of 3-pointers.
After finishing 6-27 3PT (22%) in a friendly match against Puerto Rico earlier this week, today the US team continued to throw poorly with a 9-33 3PT performance (27% rate). It is noteworthy that many of these 3-pointed fruits are in an empty position but have not been converted in the best way.
With the gameplay that coach Steve Kerr created for his students, 3-point wide-open balls will appear a lot for pitchers. If you don't make good use of the opportunity you get, throwing 3 points can completely become the weakness of the US team at the upcoming FIBA World Cup.
In the next friendly match, the US basketball team will face an extremely difficult opponent, Spain. This match will take place at 3:00 am on Monday, August 14, Vietnam time.
This will be the first big challenge of coach Steve Kerr's side after two relatively gentle friendly victories over Puerto Rico and Slovenia.
The match against Spain will close the US team's short tour in Europe. After that, they will move to the UAE to play two more pre-FIBA World Cup friendly matches against Germany and Greece.
