World Cup Wonderings: Semi Final And Bronze Medal Game
Anthony Edwards and Nickeil Alexander-Walker wrap up their summer tourney.
Just like that, the summer tournament that has injected the much-needed hit of basketball into our veins has come to a dramatic close. For the Worldwide Wolves, it ended in a bronze medal clash, playing the precursor to Germany’s gold medal win over the Serbians.
That meant Anthony Edwards’ Team USA and Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s Canadians finally met, albeit not on the stage either country longed for. Still, it was an enthralling wire-to-wire battle, with Canada toppling USA in overtime and medaling for the first time.
Success for one and an unlikely failure for another. More importantly, the entire clan of international Wolves come back healthy and ready to bounce into a big NBA season.
Individual Success and Team Disappointment
There’s no doubt Anthony Edwards will walk away from the FIBA World Cup with a sour taste lingering on his palate. As is always the case, the Americans are expected to sweep away their international competition and leave with a gold medal dangling from their necks. To come up without a medal of any shade left them a mile short of those lofty expectations.
Edwards was a part of that. He was, in many ways, the heart of that team who crashed and burned. He was the fulcrum of the offense and a highly important perimeter defender; the team’s failures will weigh heavy on his broad shoulders.
Still, when you narrow the scope and look at Edwards as an individual, he wasn’t close to the sole reason they lost three of their final four games and bowed out medal-less. In fact, Edwards did just about all he could do to drag his ill-fitting and poorly-coached roster over the line.
After taking up a role as the brightest burning star on a team littered with them, Edwards showed up big time in Team USA’s final two losses. He dropped 23 points (10-of-17 FG), eight rebounds and three assists in their close loss to the Germans in the semi-final, before backing that up with 24 points (9-of-20 FG), five boards and three helpers in the Bronze medal game against Canada.
Those final two showings, along with his tournament of moments, magic and mastery, earned him a place in the World Cup’s All-Star Five Team, alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Luka Doncic and tournament MVP Dennis Schroder. Immense company to keep at his first international competition, especially under such tough team circumstances.
One overarching improvement that was impressive to witness was Edwards’ ability to take and make shots from the in-between area. As an analytically-minded coach, Chris Finch will always want Edwards to ingest most of his shot diet from the rim, free throw line and beyond the 3-point arc, but if he is going to be a high-usage scoring phenom like he seems to be flirting with, he will need to be able to punish defenses from every zone.
With the ball in his hands and the international defenses often playing drop coverage defense, Edwards was given the chance to make shots from the mid-range and floater area, doing so time and time again throughout the tourney.
That is clearly an area that craved improvement last season. The 22-year-old shot just 37 percent on shots between the rim and the arc, which was actually a massive improvement over the 33 percent his shot in year two and the 30 percent he converted in his rookie season. If he wants to consistently put defenses in an unshakeable bind, he will need to pump those numbers up significantly next season.
Edwards surely squeezed a ton of juice from his individually successful tournament, but none more so than that mid-range confidence. Sometimes, it’s just being able to avoid constant brutalizing drives to the rim, opting instead to nail an open pull-up.
At other times, he’s going to have to rely on that short-range push shot to get him out of tight situations, rather than trying to bury his way into a packed paint.
The American squad will go home feeling like they left at least a few wins on the table, but Edwards should come home feeling like he leveled up his game once again. If that mid-range work continues to grow and his playmaking improvements carry over, he will continue ascending in the NBA and drag the Timberwolves along with him.
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