Devin Booker, Kevin Durant remain glue of Team USA vs. South Sudan

Devin Booker and Kevin Durant were vital pieces in a 103-86 win for Team USA over South Sudan that may have unlocked Team USA’s new starting lineup.

Head coach Steve Kerr swapped it around a bit, inserting Anthony Davis and Jayson Tatum in place of Joel Embiid and Jrue Holiday. For one, it’s the latest sign of Booker’s importance that he remained alongside Stephen Curry and LeBron James. Outside of that, Davis and Tatum offer more versatility against a wing-based South Sudan squad with more perimeter threats to worry about.

Davis has thoroughly outplayed Embiid thus far while Tatum went from not playing in Sunday’s win to starting on Wednesday. It’s impossible to ignore the possibility of politics and keeping everyone happy on the latter. Tatum’s DNP sparked plenty of discourse and surely there were upset parties within basketball, not aided by Tatum serving as social media’s punching bag across Sunday.

Team USA’s lead leapt into mid-teens by the early second quarter and hung around there before the plucky opposition kept hanging around, cutting it to 11 with over eight minutes left. That’s when a lineup of Curry, Booker, James, Davis and Kevin Durant quickly got the advantage back to 17, a run that featured a Booker and-one, layup and middy to suspend any dramatics.

devin booker and-1 pic.twitter.com/2yZrNCMvMO

— who is @goaltend (@2MANYBRIDGES) July 31, 2024

That has emerged as Team USA’s best lineup through two Olympic contests.

Booker started the game on South Sudanese point guard Carlik Jones, the breakout star of the tight exhibition contest the Americans narrowly won. Booker picked him up with fullcourt pressure and remained physical with him, using his size advantage to contain drives.

Devin Booker All Defense 1st team 🔜 pic.twitter.com/dojEuuti4U

— Book’em “fan” (@dbookownsyou) July 31, 2024

Durant had a similar level of impact defensively, where he was doing everything you’d want from a wing of his size with his length.

Both found pockets to score in. Durant finished with 14 points, two rebounds, three assists and three steals while Booker produced 10 points and a team-high six assists. Durant was a game-high +26. Booker led Team USA in minutes with 22, with Durant shortly behind at that number as well.

Bam Adebayo was awesome in this one. He was quietly one of Team USA’s best players in Tokyo and on Wednesday he knocked down two 3s, switched effortlessly on defense and punished mismatches around the basket. Fourteen of Adebayo’s team-high 18 points came in a 6-for-6 shooting first half.

Embiid did not play. He has notably looked out of shape and his injury history also brought some level of expectation that he perhaps might not play in every game. Where it gets interesting is that Davis and Adebayo have been far better and the team flows better when either is in there. Was this just a day off against a smaller team or has Embiid actually been phased out of the rotation? That’s what would happen if there weren’t optics and such to worry about ala Tatum.

Speaking of, Tatum played fine. He had four points, five rebounds and two assists in 17 minutes. The issue is it’s not contributions on the level of Booker, Anthony Edwards, Jrue Holiday or Derrick White. All three of those guys were really good again. Edwards and White each had three steals to go with double-digit scoring nights while Holiday was solid as always.

It was not the best showings for Curry and James. Curry continues to struggle defensively and a 1-of-9 shooting day can’t compound that. James’ six turnovers followed his six in the victory over Serbia and turnovers are really the only way this Team USA group becomes beatable.

The Americans wrap up group play on Saturday against Puerto Rico. While the expectation could be they will be on cruise control with a quarterfinal berth clinched, the star of that nation’s men’s team is Jose Alvarado, so, yeah. They’ll be locked in.

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