Steve Kerr: USA Must Be 'A Forceful Athletic Team' at 2023 FIBA World Cup
Team USA has looked anything but dominant across the entire 2023 FIBA World Cup, and head coach Steve Kerr believes things need to change.
"I think we need to lean into our strength in being a forceful athletic team," Kerr said, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic. 'It's not necessarily the lineup as it is the mindset."
Kerr's comments come after the Americans lost 110-104 to Lithuania on Sunday. The biggest issue for the Red, White and Blue came on the glass, as they were outrebounded 43-27 and allowed 18 offensive rebounds.
"There's certain keys that we've shown our guys, where we can get in better rebounding position at both ends of the floor," Kerr said. "You just can't have the four or five plays where guys are ball-watching as the shot goes up instead of turning and finding. Every play matters, but each detail that we take care of, if we change the possession, now our speed takes over, right?"
Jaren Jackson Jr. dealt with foul trouble in that loss, which created significant size disadvantages that played out on the boards.
Fortunately for Kerr's squad, the loss didn't end its championship hopes.
Rather, the United States did enough during group play to advance to the quarterfinals. It will face Italy on Tuesday and could take home the title if it figures out what went wrong on Sunday and performs better on the boards.
That is certainly what Kerr is looking for after the loss.
