SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Paolo Banchero to the rescue, not that the United States World Cup basketball entry lacks the talent to win the championship, but Italian-native Banchero choses the Americans to play for instead of against the Italians
It was this past summer that Italy urged Banchero to play for it, for his father has Italian heritage but ultimately played for the U.S., while his Italy native mother also donned the roster of the Americans, but no dice, Paolo will be facing the Italians in Tuesday night‘s quarterfinals World Cup quarterfinals in Manila, Philippines.
It was Italy drawn by the United States after Monday’sback to reality 110-104 defeat against undefeated Lithuania. It dropped the U.S. to 4-1 and 5-0 Lithuania now meets up with 4-1 Serbia Tuesday.
It makes it more difficult sailing along unbeaten, losing, and then having to win the rest of your games, but that’s what these red, white and blue tournament-favored Americans have to bank on.
“You guessed it,” said United States head coach Steve Kerr, also in the same role with the National Basketball Association Golden State Warriors, “and if we don’t win the rest of our games here, it’s over for us.
Kerr added that every player that plays for the USA has to recognize what they’re up against and it’s not enough for us to just tell them.
“They’ve got to feel it,” he said, “and I think they’ve felt it in the last couple games.”
Kerr has experienced this before. As assistant coach under Gregg Popovich for the 2019 World Cup and the Toyko Olympics that were delayed a year until 2021, Kerr was on the staff for losses in both tournaments.
The World Cup team wound up in seventh place in the quarters and the Olympic team bounced back after losing to France to still win the gold after no added setbacks.
“It makes us real,” said U.S. guard Austin Reaves, “obviously now it’s lose and go home. We see the reactions. We know that everybody wants to beat us in particular. We see the joy that they get from that, that taste in your mouth doesn’t fell good.”
There was much to work on and much to critically discuss Monday. Another poor start for Kerr’s squad, it’s become a habit, but comebacks were good except until Lithuania came along and turned a resounding 31-12 start into a deciding victory. The U.S. got as close as 93-86.
“We got to jump on guys early like they do to us,” said American forward Bobby Portis. “That’s a big thing, it’s a grown-man game here, a dog-eat-dog world, got to think they’ve felt it the last few games.”
Four years ago the red, white and blue saw medal hopes end in China with a defeat in the quarterfinals, and now Italy will try the same.
Problems, there have been many for the United States. Slow starts were damaging even though all but one was overcome. These were attributed to poor shooting, lack of team ball, lack of rebounding, and just being outplayed. But versus Lithuania, there were no rallies. Thus, now it gets another chance for survival.
“As Pop likes to say,” Keer said, “there’s a little more appropriate fear, and that’s no doubt what’s needed.”
Point guard Jalen Brunson also spoke up.
“It has to be,” he said, “we have no other choice.”
Banchero plays the backcourt and small forward and is eager to get underway against Italy.
“Listen” he said, “I’ve been playing quite some time with the USA and looking forward to it again. I know many of the Italian player and coaches but I’m dressing in red, white and blue.”
ESPN 2 will broadcast a scheduled 6:30 p.m. start.
In other quarterfinals, on Tuesday it’s Lithuania (5-0) against Serbia (4-1), and on Wednesday, it’s Germany (5-0) versus Latvia (4-1) and Canada (4-1) versus Slovenia (4-1).
