World Cup Wonderings: Game Five
Surprising results and big individual performances litter the fifth game for our Worldwide Wolves.
Even more than the frantic pace of the NBA season, the FIBA World Cup is developing at breakneck speed. Day after day, game after game, the competition is slowly getting whittled down and the cream is starting to drift to the top.
That means Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Li Kaier (Kyle Anderson) have officially bowed out of the tournament, each playing their final game over the past few days, leaving just Anthony Edwards and Nickeil Alexander-Walker as the last remaining Wolves going forward.
So, now, the whips really start cracking.
The Bow-Outs
For Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Li Kaier, these final games were naught more than a formality. For Gobert’s France and Kaier’s China, these games were purely to rank the teams who finished the tournament between 17th and 32nd, as well as some ranking points for the next Olympic Games. They were about as dead as rubber could possibly get.
Still, we gaze from our peripherals and hope to find some individual form to cling onto as we slowly but surely see the NBA season coming over the horizon — and form is exactly what we find.
Gobert was rugged against an inferior Cote d’Ivoire, wrapping up his best individual performance of the competition in his last outing. The lumbering baguette played just 22 minutes on the night, but he finished with 17 points (7-of-8 shooting), five rebounds, four assists and a +19 in the nine-point win.
There is never going to be anything truly groundbreaking with Gobert’s game. He is who he is. He sets crushing screens, he can finish pick-and-roll actions, he defends the rim, and he mixes in a healthy dose of complete fucking buffoonery. That will remain who he is, we just need to see an accentuated degree of the good and a slight decrease of the bad next season.
Li Kaier’s situation is a little different. He is with a Chinese national team who have been gnats under the heels of almost every team they’ve faced, and the ponderous point forward we’ve grown to adore hasn’t been able to shield his team from the avalanche that has buried them near-nightly.
After rock-solid 17 points, nine rebounds and five assists to end his tournament, Anderson finishes his maiden go-around with the Chinese averaging 13 points, 5.6 boards and 3.4 assists. Like Gobert, we know what he is and what he does. Even on a struggling team, his cerebral craft was evident every time he was on the floor, and he continued to do the winning things that often wrenched the Wolves out of the fire last season.
He’s still setting the table for his team, he is still making nifty little floaters, and he is still doing it as his own speed. Long live Slo-Mo.
The biggest departure from the World Cup, at least from the Wolves’ perspective, was Karl-Anthony Towns. The big man was instrumental in leading the Dominican Republic to a fantastic showing, but after slipping to Puerto Rico a few nights back they were always going to struggle to top a talented Serbian squad and stay in the tournament.
And so it went. Towns’ squad was wiped by Serbia, losing 112-79 and ending a fairytale run for the DR. Once again, Towns was draped by a defense that knew he was option one, two and three. He finished with a crisp 25 points, seven rebounds and three assists on 8-of-15 shooting, but another hot scoring night was marred by seven turnovers. In fairness, turnovers are more likely to happen when defenders are swarming him like ants on a sugar pile.
If he keeps doing shit like this though, we can deal with some of that stray voltage.
If there has been one positive — and one learning for the Timberwolves coaching brass — it’s that Towns has been beastly above the arc. He has been his usual messy self when asked to post-up, but when he has been firing from deep (which has been a lot) then his uniquely brilliant skill set has been laid bare for all to see.
That needs to carry over into the season. The confidence, the swagger and the generational shooting. Healthy and seemingly happy, he found that in over in Asia. Let’s see if he can stuff it in his luggage and unleash it on the league.
A Surprising Loss And A Monster Performance
It’s always nice to just take a relaxing breath and remember that Anthony Edwards plays for our fucking basketball team. Do it now. Revel in it. Let it wash over you in a wave of glory. Team USA didn’t feel that same glory, and every loss they suffer feels more like a tsunami of surprise than any sort of glorious wave to crest. But we have Anthony Edwards, he’s ours, and that’s all that matters.
If there were still any lingering questions about who Team USA turn to in times of turmoil, they were quickly quashed after this one. With the Americans languishing under the iron grip of Lithuania, Edwards went bonkers despite his team’s best efforts to burn this game to the ground.
The budding phenom finished with 35 points, joining just Kevin Durant (38) and Carmelo Anthony (35) as the only USA players to ever touch the 35-point threshold at a FIBA World Cup. And, because he’s awesome and because he’s ours, he chipped in three steals and a highlight reel of lockdown defense on top.
In particular, the way he’s been getting through wide pindown screens has been super impressive, as has his awareness when switching from on-ball stopper to off-ball pilferer.
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