United States men’s national basketball team appears in full gear

Kevin Durant, the 6-foot-10 bundle of versatility, is heating up and the United States men’s national basketball team is no longer struggling to maintain its position as the No. 1 team in the planet.

Prior to his present run, the Brooklyn Nets combination of point guard and power forward was averaging only 10 points a game and had made only 8-of-20 shots from the field that included 3-of-10 from beyond the 3-point arch.

But on Saturday, in the 119-84 rout over the Czech Republic, he hit 4-of-7 from the 3 and essentially couldn’t be stopped, adding eight rebounds, six assists and a block. He spent most of the fourth quarter on the bench, resting, but the USA will need just that kind of performance over the course of the next week.

That’s when the Americans, now at full strength with the Milwaukee Bucks’ Khris Middleton and Jrue Holdiay and the Phoenix Suns’ Devin Booker finished with their National Basketball Association finals and are now practicing with the 12-member Tokyo Summer Olympics.

As for Durant, he has overtaken Carmelo Anthony as the team’s leading scorer, leading rebounder, and also in assists. He is now the main man for a  worried lineup that lost two of its its four exhibition games before turning back Spain, 83-76, which is currently ranked right behind the red, white and blue in the world’s rankings.

And now it appears that nations like Slovenia, Spain, Australia and France, which disposed of the USA in the opening game. Thus, the Americans end group play at 2-1 and advances to the Tuesday quarters.

“I think we are just locked in,” said Holiday, who was part of the team’s offensive balance with 11 points while Jason Tatum of the Boston Celtics tallied 18 and Zach LaVine of the Golden State Warriors turned in 13.

The United States men’s team has won gold in 15 of 18 summer Olympics, and this ragtag group, operating without its A-list choices due to COVID-19 restrictions, and a delayed first game as Middleton, Holiday and Booker flew into Japan together on Friday.

The hope has been that this team coached by Gregg Popovich, long-time head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, will improve as it spends more time together. It at least appears to be getting there, with the real work beginning now.

Durant just loves to play. Coming off a long injury knee injury, it was he who engineered Brooklyn to the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals without the usual services of superstars James Hardin and Kyrie Irving.

“Just thinking about the all the players who played in this program,” Durant said, “it’s pretty cool to be among names like that. Carmelo is a guy I played with on two Olympic teams, I’ve seen his approach in these games and I tried to steal some of his techniques.”

He added that he didn’t know what his role would be, and thinks it’s still pretty weird for him to do (expletive) like this, that he plays for a team sport and tries his hardest to make it about the group, and otherwise it remains very special to do these things.

The Czech Republic kept it close for the first half, but the Americans, with Popovich going to his bench, turned up the defensive intensity in the second half, and now looked like a team that won’t be easy to defeat here. It lost to France after blowing numerous second-half leads following a 120-64 destruction of the Republic of Iran in which it scored and scored handily with 120 points and everyone in stars and stripes contributed.

“As I thought,” Popovich said, “we were just going to find our way, get much better, and we’re doing with the competition at least a little better.”

In the other Tuesday quarterfinals, France (3-0) faces Italy (2-1), Australia (3-0) versus Argentina (1-2), and Spain (2-1) meets up with the USA (1-2). Slovenia received a quarters bye into the semis.

Just a note to let you know that all of these teams have professional players, so if the United States happened to blow out teams like Czech Republic and Iran, that goes along with the format set up, and a W is a W.

“I just got bend out of shape,” Popovich said, “when the media first found it tough to witness our defeats to Nigeria, Australia and then France, but I informed them that all these Olympics countries have better teams now, so don’t knock results like this.”

Not only this, but all of these Olympic nations have experience, all can shoot, play aggressive defense, dish out assists, and bang the boards. And each one would like nothing more then upsetting the United States of America.

Just follow the bouncing ball and see who hoists the championship trophy and banner.