Team USA takeaways: LeBron James makes game-winner, United States survives scare vs. South Sudan in exhibition

Team USA escaped O2 Arena in London with a 101-100 win over South Sudan in an exhibition game on Saturday. LeBron James made what turned out to be the game-winning layup with eight seconds left and finished with a team-high 23 points on 9-for-13 shooting, six rebounds and seven assists in 23 minutes.

Here’s the game-winner:

South Sudan led by 14 points at halftime, took a one-point lead late in the fourth quarter and had a chance to win on the final possession. In the last few seconds, Carlik Jones missed a floater, Wenyen Gabriel missed an attempted putback and Anthony Edwards stripped the ball from Gabriel, allowing the United States to hold on.

Jones, the 2023 NBA G League MVP, had a 15-point, 11-assist, 11-rebound triple-double for South Sudan. Marial Shayok scored a game-high 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting, including 6-for-12 from deep.

The United States (barely) overcame a massive disparity beyond the arc. South Sudan made 14 of their 33 3-point attempts (42.4%), while Team USA went 7-for-28 (25%) and missed 12 of their first 15 attempts.

Next up for Team USA: Another exhibition game in London. They will play Germany on Monday at 3 p.m. ET.

What went wrong for Team USA?

After starting the game on a 12-2 run, the United States’ lead evaporated in three minutes. South Sudan’s length and athleticism gave Team USA problems, but the bigger issue was shot-making. Gabriel made back-to-back 3s about halfway through the first quarter, and after that, it seemed like all of his teammates had the hot hand. Team USA, meanwhile, bricked tons of open jumpers, especially when the second unit came in.

Some of the United States’ wounds were self-inflicted. Early in the second quarter, Nuni Omot, the 2023 Basketball Africa League MVP, walked into a practice shot from the top of the key because Edwards wasn’t ready to switch:

There is nothing that Team USA can do, however, about Shayok hitting a circus shot like this in isolation:

This, like the United States’ six-point victory against Australia last week, should be a lesson for Team USA. Even without Bol Bol, who pulled out for personal reasons, South Sudan has a roster full of pros, who rightfully, see this kind of game as an opportunity to show what they can do. Any one of them can catch fire, and, if Team USA isn’t knocking down their 3s, they’re vulnerable, despite all of their big names and All-Star appearances.

I doubt Steve Kerr and his coaching staff are furious with James about the way he defended JT Thor on the possession before the game-winner. Thor gave South Sudan the lead by hitting a tough, contested stepback 3. 

Ideally, though, Team USA would not have been in a one-possession game at that point. And maybe they shouldn’t have been. The officials might have missed a foul call on the previous possession, on which Derrick White attempted to connect with Anthony Davis on an alley-oop, and, just before that, Stephen Curry missed a wide-open 3 that would have put the United States up by seven points.

If I were Kerr, I would be a bit bothered by Edwards and Jayson Tatum shooting a combined 1-for-10 from deep, but I would only question a few of those shot attempts. Offensively, the real rough stuff came in the form of turnovers; James had four of them, Joel Embiid had three (including a couple of terrible passes out of double teams) and these miscues allowed South Sudan to get out in transition.

On the bright side, the United States actually won the turnover battle in this game (15-12). Team USA, as usual, was at their best when their defense led to offense. Generally speaking, though, their transition defense has to improve. 

Khaman Maluach is 7-foot-2 and has 3-point range, and he’s headed to Duke next season. He was impressive on Saturday. But there’s no excuse for him getting a transition dunk as easy as that.

A new wrinkle in the rotation

Like he did against Australia, Kerr elected to put the second unit on the floor at the beginning of the third quarter. This time, though, there was a twist: Instead of Tyrese Haliburton running point, White got his first run with the national team. White didn’t score in his 11 minutes (and only attempted one shot), but I liked what I saw from him. Team USA got a bunch of good stuff out of his pick-and-rolls with Davis, and he racked up five assists in short order.

White isn’t the same type of offensive weapon as Haliburton, but he looked comfortable immediately, improved Team USA’s perimeter defense and never got in the way. I’d be curious to see what lineups with both Haliburton and White look like, but it’s unclear if Kerr will even experiment with them. There are only so many minutes to go around, and Kevin Durant hasn’t even played a game yet.

Embiid … encouraging?

Provided that you can look past those troubling turnovers, this was an encouraging performance from Embiid, whose continued presence in the starting lineup has been the subject of much debate since this series of exhibition games began. In 18 minutes, the big man scored 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting, adding seven rebounds and two assists. No one on South Sudan’s roster could guard him without fouling, so they quickly resorted to sending double-teams his way. For a moment in the second quarter, when Team USA couldn’t get anything going on offense, playing through Embiid seemed like their best bet.

My favorite Embiid play, though, took place less than a minute into the game. Look at this give-and-go with James:

Embiid is still figuring out where he fits offensively, and Team USA is still trying to figure out how to involve him without sacrificing their ball movement. It’s not natural yet, but it’s coming along.