I seriously doubt they beat France…certainly not with the rotations Lawson is using.
I’m absolutely not rooting for it to happen. But I think a lot of the people watching this would not be surprised if France wins. And honestly with the way they played yesterday, it might not even be that close of a game if USA coaches and plays the same way.
USA relies on vets too much. Many of those vets play selfish ball that often leads to bad shots or turnovers. The younger players seem to play much more unselfish. Almost to a detriment when there’s a couple veterans out there with them. We’ve seen them defer too much when there’s a mixed group on the floor.
USA doesn’t have an identity on the floor. It is being ran like the all star team that it is instead of identifying a pecking order of importance. In the 1992 Dream Team everybody on that roster knew that Jordan was the man and he was going to run the show. Jordan made sure to get everyone involved to the point that Barkley ended up as the leading scorer. It seems like Stewart is trying to take on that role, but I don’t know that she’s succeeding since there’s still a lot of selfish ball being played by her and by her teammates and the coaches don’t seem to have identified that the team will revolve around her either.
I was watching yesterday and pondering what would have happened if Clark had been like Megan and ended up playing for another country. You have to imagine that someone like Spain would have built their team, offense, and defense around Clark to maximize strengths and minimize deficiencies. She drug a team of 3 star players to the national title game two years in a row because the team was built with her as the lead dog. What could a team stocked with 2nd-level professionals do when designed around her and competing against a team of 1st-level professionals that aren’t playing well together?