The United States men's basketball team played the Serbia men's basketball team in the semifinals. In the end, they completed the comeback and won a thrilling 95-91 victory. Curry personally hit nine three-pointers in this game and scored 36 points. There is no doubt that he was absolutely responsible for the victory in this game. James also performed well today, scoring 16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Durant hit a key mid-range shot in the final minute today, finishing with nine points and three rebounds, while Embiid put in a great performance with 19 points and four rebounds.
When you look at the stats after the game, you will find that today's game of the United States men's basketball team mainly relies on Curry, James, Durant and Embiid. The performance of the other players was average. For example, Edwards, who shone in the warm-up game and the previous group stage, was obviously silent in this game today. In such a pivotal game, it was clear that Kerr trusted James, Durant and Curry more. Although Edwards has performed well in previous games, Kerr still doesn't trust the young man in this kind of crucial game.
So you'll notice that Edwards didn't play long today, playing only 13 minutes before being dropped by Kerr, which is a noticeable reduction from his previous playing time. Of course, Edwards didn't play well on the court, scoring just two points on 1-of-3 shooting and two turnovers today. When he comes on the pitch, he still tends to attack individually and doesn't have a sense of teamwork. For example, when he was on the floor at the same time as Durant today, the core of the team's offense was Edwards. It was he who carried the ball, and Durant had to be forced to pull the corner, and he had to be forced to give up the ball, which was obviously unreasonable.
Although Edwards has good individual offensive ability, he is obviously inferior to Durant in terms of shooting control, and he has an obvious flaw, that is, his passing ability is very poor. Once the opponent flanks him, he is forced to make passes, with a lot of jumping passes and easy to make mistakes. A lot of his mistakes can easily turn opponents into counterattacks. So he is not at all fit to go on the offensive.
So a lot of fans think it's good that Edwards has self-confidence. But in some key games, he still has to distinguish who the key people of the team are. A lot of times he really thinks he's Jordan when he plays, and maybe he's the absolute number one offensive point in the Timberwolves' system, but he has to learn to do the dirty work in the star-studded United States team. His role with the United States team is to defend and shoot in open positions, and he doesn't need to carry the ball a lot.
When it really comes to the critical moment, the United States men's basketball team still has to rely on James, Curry and Durant, and it seems more reliable to give them the ball to finish. In today's game, many players of the United States team even did not dare to shoot on the field, which is the deterrent of international competitions, and this is the deterrent of a winner-win game. And James, Curry, and Durant have experienced too many big scenes in their careers, so they are not afraid of this kind of scene, and they will not panic at critical moments.