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Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Writer
MANILA, Philippines — If there can be such a thing as an ideal loss, Team USA might have experienced it against Lithuania at the FIBA World Cup on Sunday.
It didn’t cost the Americans any position in the tournament — in fact, it probably improved their draw. But the loss to Lithuania also acted as a “free” focusing moment for a young team that had never experienced such adversity in major international games.
Given a reprieve, Team USA came with more intent and force from the start in Tuesday’s quarterfinal, bouncing back at Mall of Asia Arena to oust Italy 100-63 from the medal round.
“Just obviously pissed off from losing and don’t want have that feeling again,” said U.S. guard Tyrese Haliburton, who had 18 points off the bench. “They’re not going to fear us. We got to just play our style of basketball.”
Team USA will get the winner of Germany-Latvia, who play Wednesday, in the semifinals on Friday. But Tuesday’s other quarterfinal brought other interesting news as Lithuania, which had proved to have a matchup advantage on the Americans, was eliminated as its recent hot shooting went cold against Serbia in a blowout.
After having fallen behind by double figures in the first half in three of their five games in the tournament, American players and coaches emphasized the need to reverse that trend. And Team USA sprinted out to a 10-point lead in the first quarter Tuesday.
After getting absolutely drilled on the boards over the past few games, the Americans doubled the Italians up over first 10 minutes to establish control even with center Jaren Jackson Jr. getting in early foul trouble for a third consecutive game.
The Americans stretched the lead behind Mikal Bridges, who has been perhaps Team USA’s steadiest player during the tournament. Bridges, who has shown off the shot creation skills he has developed over the past two years in addition to his spot-up shooting in the World Cup, scored 14 of his 24 points in the first half to propel Team USA to a 22-point halftime lead.
And Bridges doing this against Italy has an interesting side story.
Coming into the game was Paolo Banchero, who reversed his intention to play for the Italian national team this summer after a June invitation from Team USA changed his mind. Italian basketball federation president Gianni Petrucci later used the word “betrayal” when describing the way Banchero went about it.
Banchero played well off the bench with eight points and three rebounds in quality minutes. He also got to have a moment in the final seconds of the third quarter when Haliburton created a highlight when he went between his legs in midair and tossed it to Banchero for an alley-oop that left him skipping up the court in a freeing moment that essentially defined the game.
“That’s the Jamal Crawford!” Banchero said of Haliburton’s move. “That’s what I grew up watching [in Seattle, his shared hometown with Crawford]. So it was awesome to be on the other end of it.”
As for Bridges, just how much was he feeling it? He got an uncharacteristic technical foul in the third quarter for taunting the Italy bench after drilling a 3-pointer in front of them. It clearly threw him off his game as he made another 3-pointer, this time celebrating to himself with a little head shake, then plucking a steal and drawing a foul on the next two possessions. Then, a moment later, with his teammates funneling the ball to the hot hand, he made another jumper while falling down.
Having a Bridges heat check was just as unusual as a tech on his bingo card. He also had 7 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block.
“Honestly I was really locked in on rebounding and that’s kind of been my struggle,” said Bridges, who entered Tuesday’s contest averaging 9.8 points in the tournament. “We’re all confident no matter how many points we score. … Everybody is their main guys on their [NBA] team. We’re just ready for the moment.”
Bridges’ offensive development was a major story in the NBA last season; it was a precipitating factor in Kevin Durant getting traded to the Phoenix Suns, as Bridges became the key cog in the Brooklyn Nets‘ makeover.
That offensive development was helped significantly by someone Italian, national team assistant coach Riccardo Fois, who was a player development coach with the Suns and helped turn Bridges into such an offensive threat. Fois could only watch his star pupil cook his team as the U.S. turned Tuesday’s game into a rout.
In addition to clearly getting his team ready to play, Team USA coach Steve Kerr tossed a wrinkle at Italy with heavy use of a half-court trap that repeatedly disrupted the motion offense the Italians run. Italy made just seven of its first 34 shots, which put it in a hopeless hole.
It was part of an overall energetic defensive effort from the U.S. that was way more characteristic of the team that looked like the title favorite when it arrived in the Philippines two weeks ago.
Team USA also had its best 3-point shooting game of the tournament, making 17.
Italy was led by 18 points from Utah Jazz forward Simone Fontecchio.
“It’s been a journey for this group, and there’s five more days — that’s how we look at it,” Kerr said. “We’re the horse turning back to the barn. The horse starts picking up the pace when it senses it’s near the barn, and that’s what’s happening right now. Our guys are sensing this is the end of the journey.”