Team USA in great position entering round 2 and so are many other teams

MANILA, Philippines — The opponent names will grow to be extra recognizable for USA Basketball now. Nikola Vucevic awaits on Friday, Jonas Valanciunas on Sunday, and if the Individuals hold progressing by this FIBA World Cup the challenges will solely get more durable.

To that, they are saying this: Good.

Second-round play on the World Cup begins Friday, with a 32-team subject to begin the match now right down to 16 contenders for the Naismith Trophy. The U.S. is certainly one of eight groups with 3-0 information, and people are the groups which have the simplest path to the quarterfinals.

“There’s a direct respect degree from guys going towards them within the NBA,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr mentioned. “The familiarity actually helps as properly. The arduous half is if you go right into a recreation and there’s a fantastic participant who these guys don’t know, and he’s bought a final title with a number of letters, and you must consult with him as No. 5 or no matter and our guys aren’t prepared for the way good this participant is. That’s an enormous problem on this match.”

Not anymore. No one might want to Google a lot of the greatest gamers on the groups that made Spherical 2. Luka Doncic is headed there, together with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Karl-Anthony Cities, Dennis Schroder, Patty Mills, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Vucevic and Valanciunas — amongst others.

In Spherical 2, the U.S. performs Montenegro on Friday and Lithuania on Sunday.

“For us as a rustic, to get to play towards the U.S. will probably be an enormous factor,” mentioned Vucevic, Montenegro’s greatest participant. “We now have to go on the market and present our greatest … and revel in that recreation.”

Becoming a member of the U.S. in Spherical 2 with 3-0 information out of group play are Slovenia, defending World Cup champion Spain, Canada, Germany, Serbia, the Dominican Republic and Lithuania. For these eight groups, the duty is this straightforward: Win two video games this weekend, and the quarterfinals are sure. Every might additionally lose certainly one of their subsequent two video games and nonetheless advance.

Additionally within the second-round subject are eight groups that superior with 2-1 information: Montenegro, Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico, Australia, Georgia, Brazil and Latvia.

The Individuals are the one staff within the match that has received each recreation to this point by at the least 27 factors. Canada’s closest win margin to this point is 26; Lithuania’s is 20.

“Nothing modifications,” U.S. captain Jalen Brunson mentioned. “The strategy must be the identical. It’s virtually the knockout stage, and we strategy the sport prefer it’s our final recreation each recreation. We’ve bought to maintain that very same mentality. There’s simply much more at stake now.”

There’s extra than simply the World Cup at stake, even.

Australia has already certified for subsequent yr’s Paris Olympics. All 15 remaining second-round groups are nonetheless within the combine to clinch an computerized berth in these video games based mostly on their end right here; two of the 5 Americas groups will get Olympic spots, two of the ten European groups left will get them as properly.

For these groups that hold successful, the Olympic spots will deal with themselves.

“Our purpose, our first purpose, was to win the group stage,” mentioned Gilgeous-Alexander, Canada’s high participant and certainly one of two present All-NBA gamers within the match — Doncic, the Dallas star who leads Slovenia, being the opposite. “However we’re not carried out. We’re not happy. And we now have 5 extra video games to attempt to go win.”

Canada is bidding for its first World Cup medal ever. There will probably be at the least two groups on the medal podium that didn’t get there on the final World Cup in 2019; Spain — which has an 11-game World Cup successful streak — remains to be alive, however silver medalist Argentina didn’t qualify for this match and bronze medalist France was ousted in Spherical 1.

“Our purpose for this season was to make it to the quarterfinals after which chill out and see what occurs,” Spain coach Sergio Scariolo mentioned. “It’s going to be a hell of a problem.”

So far as the varied permutations go to advance, the U.S. doesn’t appear that excited by something in addition to the obvious path – win Friday, win Sunday and go into the quarterfinals unbeaten getting into the win-or-else spherical.

“While you put this uniform on, dropping’s probably not an possibility,” U.S. guard Tyrese Haliburton mentioned. “Each recreation holds actual weight. It’s severe for us. We’re not it as, ‘Oh, if we lose, we are able to nonetheless win it.’ It’s nearly enhancing each recreation.”

KEY MATCHUPS

Among the most intriguing second-round matchups:

— Dominican Republic vs. Puerto Rico, Friday at Manila: Regional rivals and each most likely want a win to maintain reasonable hopes of getting an computerized Olympic berth.

— Italy vs. Serbia, Friday at Manila: Italy has received the final two conferences, together with a victory in Belgrade to go to the Tokyo Olympics (and knock Serbia out) and a win in final yr’s EuroBasket opening knockout stage.

— Slovenia vs. Australia, Friday at Okinawa: A rematch of the Tokyo Olympics bronze-medal recreation, received by Australia.

— Lithuania vs. U.S., Sunday at Manila: Lithuania’s super-proud basketball historical past contains beating the Individuals on the 1998 world championships (the U.S. had no NBA gamers due to a lockout) and on the 2004 Athens Olympics.

— Canada vs. Spain, Sunday at Jakarta: The upstart Canadians towards the defending champions.

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