Team USA basketball honors identity in Olympic medal round

PARIS — Distractions are everywhere in Paris, and the pressure of the Olympics is on the increase as Team USA enters this final stress-inducing run. The Americans begin their defining week with a basic mantra: Keep it simple and stay with your identity.

After playing three games in a 14-day span, Team USA needs to win three in a five-day span, beginning Tuesday in the quarterfinals against Brazil (3:30 p.m. ET), to bring home its fifth consecutive gold.

Over the past month, the Americans have honed a style that has led them to a perfect 8-0 record, including exhibitions. As they made final preparations Monday, there was a collective mindset to stay with the plan.

“We know what wins a FIBA game,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr said, referring to the international rules played at the Olympics.

“We are just completely focused on our defense … and then the beauty of our team and the talent, the depth of our talent is that from one game to the next, we’ve got lots of guys who have the ability to get rolling.”

Peel away all the analysis and little dramas of starting lineups and playing time, and this is essentially all Team USA does. Kerr has worked to develop lineup combinations that are often defense first. The U.S. doesn’t run any sort of complicated offense; it basically is just share the ball and lean into whoever is hot.

Three different players — Kevin Durant, Bam Adebayo and Anthony Edwards — have led Team USA in scoring in the three games so far in France. All of them come off the bench.

Ten different players average at least seven points a game. All 10 average at least six shots per game, and no one averages more than 10. It has led to excellent efficiency — they are shooting 54% as a team.

“That’s how we can overwhelm teams. It’s just everybody has to be ready for your moment whenever it is,” said Stephen Curry, who has struggled shooting the ball in the Olympics (32% overall), but it hasn’t slowed the team down.

“I think that’s a challenge because you don’t know from quarter to quarter from game to game who it’s going to be, [but] it’s a fun way to play. If you’re bought into ‘Let’s just win the basketball game’ and after that, who cares what it looks like.”

What it looks like defensively is the U.S. is holding its opponents to 40% shooting and just 29% on 3-pointers. It is creating a combination of 16 steals and blocks per game.

Kerr has 11 players on the roster averaging between 18-22 minutes, and he has prioritized having size, leaning into playing three centers in his rotation most of the time.

And that isn’t going to change. While the Americans don’t have the advantage of many of their opponents at the Olympics when it comes to the years of experience of cores of other countries have playing together, everything the coaching staff has done for the past month has been purposeful in coming up with a reliable game plan and they want to stick with it.

“It’s important to focus on keeping that identity now that you’re playing the best teams,” Kerr said.

In preparations for Brazil, which advanced to the quarters on point differential after going through pool play with a 1-2 record, the focus has been on rebounding.

The U.S. has been marginally outrebounded by its opponents so far, 124-123, but it has been allowing 14 offensive rebounds per game. Brazil averages 13 offensive rebounds per game, and Kerr said he’s expecting the team to try to “maul” the Americans on the boards.

But while that may be a focus, there is no plan to radically alter the game plan.

“Looking ahead we just keep the main thing the main thing,” said Adebayo, referencing a famous saying with his Miami Heat. “We can make the game truly simple for us because we’re so talented. Everybody just has the right mindset.”