USA Basketball Wraps Up Scrimmage Schedule Against Nigeria, Winning 110-66
Jimmy Butler had his best game yet for USA Basketball on Monday night in Houston as the USA beat Nigeria 110-66 to cap an undefeated pre-tournament run.
The time has come. After five friendlies to get ready for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, Team USA is about to do the thing. Which thing? Oh, the thing where they look even more dominant than they already do en route to winning yet another gold medal. It will definitely be more interesting to see how the other teams fare and, you know, the whole hoping that everyone is safe while in Brazil. Reports swirled about the internet on Monday that the Australian Olympic team experienced a fire situation where the fire alarms didn’t go off and they were robbed. Not the best thing ever.
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Fortunately, the basketball will be great and it looks like things are lining up for Butler who had his best game of the summer against Nigeria in the final tune-up before the real thing kicks off this weekend. See:
Butler actually scored nine (NINE!) points against Nigeria, adding six rebounds, two assists and four steals. The steals would have looked particularly impressive had DeMar DeRozan not matched that total. Still, that’s the kind of all-around game that helped Butler lock up a trip to Rio as the Kawhi Leonard super-sub.
It almost seems silly, given the ease with which any combination of Team USA players can create a lineup which will beat the rest of the world with relative ease, but even players of an elite, Olympic caliber take time to grow into their super-team roles. Butler may have been doing just that through the first four games of friendlies for the USA. He was on the court for huge chunks of each game, playing an active role, but he didn’t shoot particularly well. His peripheral numbers also didn’t provide an accurate indicator of the type of impact he was capable of having on the court. His lock-down defense hasn’t been producing four steals per game, until Monday night.
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With Kyrie Irving and Paul George sitting out, Carmelo Anthony led the way in both scoring and shot attempts. He chucked 13 shots and put up 19 points to lead the way, followed closely by Klay Thompson who put up 17 points on 10 shots. Butler probably won’t ever shoot 13 shots in a game at the Olympics, and it doesn’t look like he will likely end up leading the team in scoring, but it is all coming along for the star player from Chicago.
Monday’s game was a friendly, but it is safe to say that the real winner is the Nigerian logo. If you haven’t seen it, you really should. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like the Nigerian team is a medal contender, though you’d never know how good a team is when they are playing against the United States. Even when losing by 40 or 50 points, their logo is a tiger dunking. Not a Tony the Tiger type of caricature, but an angry, hungry tiger that can only be satisfied by vicious dunks. It may be a small consolation, but when you’re slated to play against Team USA, you have to take what you can get.