Team Canada lost its final match before heading for China, against the United States basketball team, 84-68. Nick Nurse’s guys didn’t have any chances of beating their southern neighbors, as they lost the pace immediately in the opening period.
The US team opened the match much better, as they held the rival without a basket scored for almost three minutes. The biggest favorites for taking the gold medal in China quickly made a 20-9 lead which was mostly because of a strong defense and rebounding domination.
Canada managed to come back a little bit in the second quarter, when they closed the gap to only 5 points, 35-30, but that didn’t last too long. The USA responded with an 11-1 burst which set the result at the halftime, 46-31 for the Americans.
In those moments, Team Canada didn’t have any chances of slowing down the fired-up rivals. The US team was looking much better than against Australia a couple of days ago.
“We got to speed up that learning curve. We can’t have any drop-offs, we have a great responsibility,” said Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics.
He was the top scorer of his crew with 19 points, shooting 8 of 11 from the field. Three more players in the American team had a double-digit number of points, Donovan Mitchell and Kemba Walker 12, and Myles Turner 10 but with 15 boards.
His defensive performance was of huge help for the USA, as he completely dominated in the paint not allowing the Canadians to have an easy shot from near the rim. Again, the USA had an edge in the air, with 55 boards, while Canada recorded 37.
The last two periods were even but we need to say that Popovich’s team lowered the tempo and closed this event without too many troubles.
As for Canada, the best player in this contest was Kyle Wiltjer, who plays for the Turkish team Turk Telekom. The 26-year old power forward added 21 points, and created a lot of trouble for the opponent, but he was the lone star in his team. Khem Birch, the new player of the Orlando Magic, followed him with 13 buckets and 6 boards, but that wasn’t enough for Canada to make a better result.
This was the third defeat for Nurse’s team before the FIBA World Cup, in seven matches. They lost to the USA, Australia, and Nigeria, while beating the latter two sides and New Zealand twice. If some of the NBA players available accepted the invitation to play at the WC, Canada would be in the group of the favorites. Since that didn’t happen, it will be very hard for these boys to be among two top nations from the American continents and qualify directly for the Olympic games.
Meanwhile, the United States has quickly bounced back following their loss which snapped the 78-match winning streak. There are still some imperfections, but as time goes by, and the competition progresses, it is sure that Popovich’s boys will be looking much better.
The tournament in China starts on August 29. America faces the Czech Republic in the first round, while Canada plays against Australia.
