WHERE IS CURRY AS TEAM USA AWAITS CANADA AND REAL OLYMPIC CONTENDERS?
He shot 1 of 9 in the latest victory, for three points, and is shooting 32 percent as the Americans carry on, knowing the Canadians will strike with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander should they meet next week
The coaching qualm, NBA-BS, was sidestepped when Jayson Tatum started against South Sudan. He scored four points and grabbed five rebounds in 17 minutes during a 103-86 win. Whatevs — with Joel Embiid receiving load management Wednesday. More importantly, for Canada, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went 8 of 10 from the field and tickled stat sheets with more steals, assists and rebounds in a nice victory over Australia.
I am looking ahead to next week in Paris, where I will watch Olympics basketball. And I notice that Steph Curry hit only 1 of 9 shots and went 0 for 6 on three-pointers. That means in four consecutive games, including the preseason, he has made 13 of 40 shots and only 7 of 29 from beyond the arc. If we are comparing Curry to Gilgeous-Alexander, which is happening in the league’s MVP balloting, this is an American issue.
Chances are decent that Team USA will play the Canadians at some point — with Shai, RJ Barrett, Lu Dort and Dillon Brooks supported, quite well, by Jamal Murray and Andrew Nembhard off the bench. “@rjbarrett has been hooping hooping,” wrote Dwyane Wade, who broadcasts America’s games on NBC. Does LeBron James, Wade’s buddy, know he’s encouraging opponents on Instagram? Does Wade understand Jordi Fernandez, Canada’s coach, does not use drone surveillance and was named head coach of the Brooklyn Nets?
It’s possible no one will come within 10 points of the four-time-defending Games champions. But Curry needs to turn 17-point victories over South Sudan into 40-point blowouts, and he needs to dazzle fans at home who wonder what happened. Or, his team could have problems in the quarterfinals, semifinals and/or finals.
“It's not the goal,” forward Anthony Davis said of making the quarters with Canada, Germany, France and others. “It does give us a sense of satisfaction as far as being able to play next week. But there’s a lot we can get better at, a lot that we can clean up, and we'll tighten the screws again and just see where it takes us from there.”
Said South Sudan coach Royal Ivey: “We kept Steph Curry to three points. You got the Monstars over there.”
One Monstar clanks the rim.
While coach Steve Kerr absorbs questions about Embiid and his emotions, he would like to answer positively about Curry. So far, he talks about the “impact” he makes off double teams and as a stone-cold historic shooter. “Whether he makes shots or not, he impacts a game because he scares the other team, just the threat of Steph,” he said. Curry would like shots to fall in Lille as they do by the San Francisco bay.
“It’s a weird dynamic of you understanding the sense of urgency of the moment, of having to play your best every night, but being comfortable with the uncomfortable nature of you don’t know how it’s gonna look every single night,” Curry said. “You don’t know who’s gonna get on a heater. And that’s just the beauty of this team.”
The heater, of all people, was Bam Adebayo with 18 points. Kevin Durant chilled with 14 points in 22 minutes. James scored 12 in 21 minutes. The bench scored 66 points. “I just feel like Steve trusts us,” Adebayo said. “We've been calling ourselves the bench mob for a long time now. And it doesn't matter who's in the lineup. We always seem to figure it out.”
“The defense was fantastic,” Kerr said. “We had a few letdowns, but it was more on the offensive side. I thought the ball stuck a little bit on offense. We had turnovers, but the defensive effort was the key to the whole thing. Our strength is that we can lean on all of those great players depending on matchups, depending on how we want to play, who we’re playing. And every single guy is capable of coming out there and taking over a game. Every night is going to be a little different. But we like our chances.”
Everything was fine — except Curry’s nasties, on his three-point night. For all we know, he’ll make almost every shot in the next game against Puerto Rico. He’ll be needed soon, no doubt. That also goes for Embiid, whose teammates defended him when fans booed again. Will they never realize he is a U.S. citizen, though he was granted citizenship by France in 2022? “We understand what the crowd is after,” Adebayo said. “We understand why they boo, but he’s one of us. When you’re one of us, we going to stick together through thick and thin.”
Embiid sat. Tatum played. Both will play Saturday.
The quarters begin Tuesday. “I’m here to win and win the gold and that’s my only mindset,” James said. “It’s not even about scoring. It’s not about any of the stats.”
But Steph Curry, yes, needs more than three points.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.