Top Storylines and Predictions Heading into FIBA World Cup Semifinals
Whoever saw that one coming, please raise your hand.
Exactly.
France's stunning 65-52 win over host Spain in Wednesday's quarterfinal of the 2014 FIBA World Cup wasn't the biggest upset in basketball history. Just don't blame France for celebrating as such.
Free from the prospect of facing mighty Spain on its home floor, Team USA now touts an even easier road to the gold. With just two more wins, the Americans will capture their fourth straight first-place finish in international competition—on the 10-year anniversary of their epic collapse at the 2004 Athens Olympics, no less.
Before that can happen, however, Team USA will have to dispatch a formidable Lithuania side that will doubtless be entertaining upset dreams of its own.
Meanwhile, France looks to continue its magical run with a showdown against Serbia, fresh off a 28-point thumping of Brazil.
What follows are the eight predictions and storylines we'll be keeping an eye on as FIBA enters its final weekend.
Jonas Valanciunas Will Expose USA's Interior
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Between Anthony Davis, Kenneth Faried, DeMarcus Cousins and the sparsely used Andre Drummond, Team USA wields a quartet of bigs more than capable of protecting the rim.
What all but Cousins don't boast, however, is the kind of size and brute strength necessary to neutralize what stands to be their biggest interior test yet: Lithuania's Jonas Valanciunas.
Over seven games, Valanciunas—a rising star with the Toronto Raptors—has yet to hit on fewer than 55.6 percent of his shots. His overall field-goal percentage (73 percent) is a FIBA best. Oh, and he's also fifth in rebounds.
Needless to say, Team USA is going to have its hands full Thursday. If you're Lithuania, the strategy is simple: Run your offense through Valanciunas in hopes that Davis or Faried gets in early foul trouble, thus depriving Mike Krzyzewski of arguably his most important two-way players.
Here's CBS Sports' Zach Harper speaking on precisely this point in a game preview posted Wednesday:
"Lithuania's big men can actually move up and down the floor. Valanciunas is a good pick-and-roll defender and he can rotate quickly from the weak side to block shots. [Donatas] Motiejunas is also very mobile and can run the floor well. Darjus Lavrinovic is also a load inside who can be pretty active all over the place. Team USA brought big men to battle Spain, but they don't have to worry about that anymore. What they do have to worry about is whether or not Kenneth Faried and Anthony Davis are going to be strong enough to handle the Lithuania bulk.
"
Without its principal rim protectors, Team USA—between Curry, Irving and James Harden, not exactly a paragon of perimeter defense to begin with—would be acutely susceptible to penetration, subsequently creating open looks aplenty for a Lithuania team currently ranked second in the tournament in overall three-point shooting.
Lithuania may not tout quite the recipe to pull off an upset to end all upsets. But in Valanciunas—one of a handful of FIBA standouts poised for a breakout year in the NBA—it at least has the ingredient to make it interesting.
France's 180-Degree Strategy Turn
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As far as game plans go, France's gambit against Spain—essentially daring shooters to beat it from deep—was as well conceived as it was flawlessly executed. Spain shooting a cartoonish 2-of-22 from deep didn't hurt, obviously.
Against a Serbian side currently firing at a 38 percent clip, however, such a strategy would be a risky errand indeed. Instead, France needs to invert its strategy to focus more intently on disrupting Serbia's perimeter shooters—led by recent Phoenix Suns draft pick Bogdan Bogdanovic—from finding their rhythm.
Of Serbia's three centers, none is averaging more than 4.9 rebounds per game. In fact, the team's leading glass-cleaner, Nemanja Bjelica (7.4 per contest), is listed as a small forward.
That’s good news for France's bigs—particularly Rudy Gobert, who will look to capitalize on his breakout performance in Wednesday's upset over Spain with an encore semifinal performance.
In the two teams' previous meeting on August 31, Serbia hit on just four of its 18 three-point attempts in a 74-73 loss. If you're France, that's not a fate you want to tempt again.
Will the Real Derrick Rose Please Stand Up?
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No FIBA participant has endured a more searing spotlight than Derrick Rose, whose much-discussed return to the hardwood has been both a blessing and a curse for Team USA.
Just weeks after Mike Krzyzewski suggested to ESPN Chicago's Nick Friedell that Rose was back to being "elite," the former MVP's FIBA performance has been a mixed bag to say the least. Even against far inferior competition, Rose has appeared tentative and unsure—in other words, the precise opposite of what we've come to expect from the Chicago Bulls' firebrand floor general.
The good news: Rose's performance in Team USA's quarterfinal win over Slovenia (12 points, three rebounds, five assists) was by far his best and most efficient to date, against one of the tournament's most lauded backcourts to boot.
Krzyzewski might not need a top-flight Rose to bring home the gold. After all, there's a reason Team USA's skipper loaded up in the backcourt. But as a sunny counterpoint to Paul George's horrific injury during an intra-squad scrimmage on August 1, it would certainly be much welcomed indeed.
Nic Batum Will Have a Breakout Game
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With Tony Parker and Joakim Noah electing to sit out this summer's festivities, France's FIBA prospects weren't exactly encouraging—No. 8 ranking notwithstanding.
If anyone was to heed his country's clarion call, it was Nicolas Batum, the 6'8" swingman and Portland Trail Blazer whose versatile two-way skill seems tailor-made for the international game. Unfortunately, Batum's production, while passable, has by no means been a basketball revelation: 9.9 points and 3.3 rebounds on 41 percent shooting, including a woeful 17 percent from three-point range.
Good thing, then, that Batum authored one of his better group-play stat lines against the very team he'll be facing Friday.
For all of its well-honed cohesiveness, Serbia is decidedly shorthanded when it comes to rangy wings—precisely what it needs to slow down a player of Batum's cut and caliber.
As long as he can avoid ill-timed pull-up threes and play within the flow of the offense, Batum should have ample opportunity to feast on Serbia's overmatched wings. Judging by the two's first encounter—a narrow 74-73 win for France—it might even be necessary.
Score First, Ask Questions Later
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File this one under "Looks Can Be Deceiving." Over the course of its seven-game FIBA rampage, Team USA has authored a tournament-best 33-point average score disparity.
What this number doesn't tell you, however, is how prone Krzyzewski and his crew have been to sluggish starts. Overcoming bricks and blunders against teams like Finland and Ukraine is one thing, but if Lithuania can replicate Turkey's formidable group-stage performance (it led Team USA at five by halftime), you can bet the nerves of Team USA will start to tense a bit.
Part of the problem stems from the collection of talent itself. Without LeBron James and Kevin Durant to bail out stalled possessions, Team USA—fielding one of its youngest, most unproven teams in recent memory—is prone to counterproductive freelancing.
Luckily, the team's defensive superiority has proven time and again to be too much for the competition to handle, with scores of turnovers leading to a bevy of easy buckets at the other end. For Team USA to prevail, that constant absolutely must hold.
Not That Bogdanovic, the Other One
6 of 8To the many who might be confused about the two's shared position and draft year, a quick refresher: Bojan Bogdanovic plays for Croatia. Bogdan Bogdanovic, meanwhile, plays for neighboring Serbia.
But while Bojan might be the better NBA prospect on paper, it's Bogdan and Serbia's time to shine.
After something of a shaky start to group play, Bogdanovic enters Friday's semifinal on a mini hot streak of sorts, tallying 16.5 points on 60 percent shooting (including 50 percent from distance) in his last two games.
Taken by the Suns with the No. 27 pick, Bogdanovic's performance prompted general manager Ryan McDonough—on hand in Spain taking in the festivities—to praise him to AZCentral.com's Paul Coro:
"He was very efficient and got his spots and got the shots he wants to shoot. He scored on spot-up shots, off the dribble and going to the basket. I'm impressed with his playmaking. He's got long arms. He's strong and he has a feel for the game.
He can make a lot of plays other guys can't make.
"
Expect Nic Batum to get the lion's share of minutes shadowing Serbia’s 22-year-old sharpshooter in what could be one of the more compelling two-player battles of the tournament.
France Still Has Some Magic Left
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Since its first international showing in 1937, the French national basketball team has captured exactly one gold medal. The year: 2013. The tournament: Eurobasket. The opponent: Spain.
If France feels like a team of destiny, well, it knows that feeling too.
It's hard to imagine France pulling off the impossible and upsetting the United States. But if its impressive win over Spain proved anything, it's that head coach Vincent Collet is sure to have his team as prepared as possible.
Serbia is no slouch, of course. In fact, its only losses of the tournament were at the expense of France (74-73), Brazil (81-73) and Spain (89-73). What Serbia lacks, however, is the sheer range of France's playmakers. From Batum to Boris Diaw, Thomas Heurtel to Antoine Diot, Collet has plenty of basketball brains to spare.
We expect Serbia to take the bronze. On this day, however, the magic remains in France's corner.
Final Score: France 80, Serbia 75
America Marches On
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Between the savvy perimeter play of Adas Juskevicius and Martynas Pocius to the diametric frontcourt skill sets of Jonas Valanciunas and Donatas Motiejunas, Lithuania is nothing if not top-to-bottom solid.
What it lacks, however, are things Team USA has yet to cease lording over the rest of the basketball world: sheer size, blinding speed and unparalleled athleticism.
Make no mistake: This won't be a start-to-finish blowout. If anything, I expect Lithuania to seize on the Americans' propensity for slow starts with unrivaled aplomb—three-pointers galore and plenty in the way of first-quarter nerves.
But just as it has at innumerable times throughout the tournament, Team USA will make its run. It'll start small, perhaps with Anthony Davis shooting the gap or Kenneth Faried finding James Harden streaking down the floor off a long rebound. Then, before Lithuania knows what's happening, that one momentum-shifting bucket will give way to a cascade of steals and subsequent slams and Oh my goodness, how do they have a 20-point lead already?
It's a tale as old as the game of basketball itself. Or the last 20-plus years of international competition, anyway.
Final Score: USA 105, Lithuania 86
All stats courtesy of FIBA.com unless otherwise noted.
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