A Big Night From Bam Adebayo Led Team USA To A Win Over South Sudan

While the opener against Serbia was a bigger game in terms of teams that could compete with Team USA for a medal, the second group stage game against South Sudan was perhaps just as anticipated because of how their exhibition matchup went just over a week ago. South Sudan came one-point shy of a stunning upset in London, sparking a few days of discourse regarding Team USA’s makeup, and on Wednesday in Paris, the Americans had a chance to make another statement.

Steve Kerr made some lineup changes, swapping Jayson Tatum into the starting lineup for Jrue Holiday after his DNP against Serbia, while Joel Embiid was removed in favor of Anthony Davis — with the Sixers star becoming the odd man out of the rotation against the spread out attack of South Sudan. After a back-and-forth start, the Americans started to settle in and pull ahead by 12 after the first quarter and 19 at the half.

While it was a balanced attack, the standout performance came from Bam Adebayo, who had 14 points on a perfect 6-of-6 shooting in the first 20 minutes, including a pair of threes.

In the third, it looked like the Americans might run South Sudan out of the gym, as Davis, Stephen Curry, and Tatum combined for a steal and lob to push the lead to 21.

However, South Sudan continued to battle, pouring in some threes to cut the deficit to 11, and it looked for a moment like they might once again put the Americans to a late test.

However, the USA’s ability to turn defense into offense was just too much, and they were able to get continued rim pressure in the fourth quarter to ultimately pull away to a 103-86 win.

Adebayo finished with 18 points and seven rebounds to lead the way for Team USA, with LeBron James (12 points, seven rebounds, five assists) and Kevin Durant (14 points) once again having strong showings. Anthony Edwards (13 points), Devin Booker (10 points, six assists), and Derrick White (10 points) joined them in double figures. For South Sudan, Nuni Omot led all scorers with 24, with support from Carlik Jones (18 points) and Marial Shayok (12 points), but they just weren’t able to get quite hot enough to really put a scare into the USA squad.

With the win, Team USA has effectively punched their ticket to the knockout rounds, and will face a Puerto Rico team that got steamrolled by Serbia on Wednesday. We’ll see how Steve Kerr shuffles his rotations for that game, and we might not get a true sense for his thoughts on the best rotations until the knockout games arrive.