Here’s a sentence you might not expect to read from the 2019 FIBA World Cup: Team USA just barely escaped in a game against Turkey in overtime.
What’s more, the squad that doesn’t have many of the NBA’s biggest American stars got extremely lucky to win that game, and that’s not a great sign for what could happen in this tournament going forward.
Let’s start in regulation: Turkey was up 81-79 with just over 12 seconds left thanks to great games from Ersan Ilyasova (26 points), Furkan Korkmaz (16) and Cedi Osman (nine).
Then, after a Khris Middleton miss, USA got an offensive rebound and Jayson Tatum was FOULED while shooting from distance at the buzzer:
He made two of three:
In overtime, Turkey was once again up 92-91 with nine seconds left, but they missed four straight free throws, and Middleton won it with a pair of shots from the charity stripe:
Whew. But what’s worse is Tatum appeared to get hurt:
No matter how you look at it, this is a disaster for the Americans. Couple that with the loss last month to Australia and you can see how better, more cohesive teams can take down this squad unless they can turn things around quick.
