Hoops Tonight - USA-Brazil Reaction: LeBron & Team USA advance to Olympic semis, Embiid bounces back

or any simpler. Baseball, golf, UFC, there's something for every fan of every sport to bet on DraftKings. And I know it's early, but football season will be here before you know it. And the Kansas City Chiefs are currently the favorite to win the Super Bowl on DraftKings at plus five fifty. And if you're new to DraftKings, you got to check this out. New customers, bet five dollars and get one hundred and fifty in bonus bets instantly.

Download the Draft Kings Sportsbook app now and use code coops that's hops, that's code hoops for new customers to get one to fifty in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five dollars only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or in West Virginia visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York called eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four six seven three

sixty nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age varies by jurisdiction. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. Deposit and eligibility restrictions apply. See terms and responsible gaming resources at DKG dot co. Slash baseball All right, oh, good to hoops today here

at the volume heavy Tuesday, everybody. If all of you guys are having a great week so far, we had a marathon of Olympic basketball today, four quarterfinal games. We're gonna be hitting all four of them, starting with USA Brazil, then getting into France, upsetting Canada, Serbia coming back from down twenty four to beat the Australian national team, and then at the very end, Germany, after falling down by five in the mid third quarter, comes back to win

comfortably against Greece. You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops and O YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTC. You guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed where you get your podcast on our hoops tonight. Don't forget it's helpful. Fe

leave a rating and a review on that front. The last, but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the summer. Also, yesterday I actually recorded the first video in our player ranking series. Now those aren't gonna release until I go out of town. I'm leaving on Thursday to go to Vegas to see two more Dead End Company shows at the Sphere. I'm very excited

to see John Mayer play with three fingers. He slammed his index finger in his left hand in a door, so that's gonna be like kind of like I was joking about this with my wife, like because it's such a low hazard indush. You don't really get to see musicians play hampered the way you do with athletes because they can get injured. But I've seen some of the early stuff from him last week, playing with just three fingers. Any of you guys who have played guitar know that,

like this is vitally important. It's probably the most important finger on that hand when it comes to playing. And so I'm super excited just to see John play some injured guitar at this fear. Later on this week, my wife and I are seeing two shows and then we're coming home and then we're turning right back around and going out of town to the Pacific Northwest for about a week. And we got a bunch of different places that we're hitting up there. I'm gonnahit a few national parks.

We're gonna spend some time at Lake Jolande as well. I'm super excited to just get out of this Tucson heat, take a little bit of a break, and then come back for the grind as we head into the next regular season. But while I'm gone, we're gonna be airing the beginning part of our Top twenty five Players series, and I recorded that first video yesterday, And first of all, it's just gonna be so difficult. It's insane how many talented players there are in the league. Just try to

rank a top twenty five. It's not easy. It's a super stressful process. But I'm really really excited to get into that with you guys starting next week. But this week just Olympic basketball quarterfinals today, semi finals on Thursday, and then the gold medal game on Saturday for US here at Hoops. And it might might try to cram in a mail bag there at the tail end of the week two. We'll see, So keep those questions in the YouTube comments. So USA Brazil just an ass kicking.

To be honest, Brazil doesn't have the talent to hang with Team USA. Their primary perimeter initiator is Barcelina Wertas, who's been around for a very long time, and they just ran a super deep drop coverage on him and he couldn't get his pull up mid range jump shot going with enough efficiency for it to matter. They took thirty seven threes to try to win the math game, but they only made twelve of them. Temusa forced him

into fifteen turnovers. They blocked seven of their shots TSA's defense has been consistently stifling from the beginning of the exhibition games. The offense has been a little bit more of an adventure, which we're going to talk about in a minute, but they've been really good. They've been averaging allowing just zero point eight to one points per half court possession so far in the Olympics. That is by far the best mark out of any of the Olympic teams.

The Victor Webbin Yama Rudy Gobert front line for France, that team is in second place in half court defense, allowing zero point eight to seven points per possession, So a pretty substantial gap there between basically like ten percent between Team USA and Germany, or excuse me, between TOSA and France. So that's how dominant their defense has been.

And they're allowing to zero point eight three points per half court possession even including all five exhibition games, and that includes that South Sudan game where they did not have a very good defensive night. So like Tosa has

been consistently great defensively. They're active on the ball, they're getting deflections, they're getting good perimeter defense performance even from guys like Devin Booker, and Steph Curry, who in their careers are not necessarily known as being stifling perimeter guys. They're super active on the back line. They're just playing really, really hard on that end of the floor and the results have been really good. But the exciting part is they're starting to get it going on offense. They were

already playing really well. They were allowing or they were scoring zero point nine to six points per half court possession in the exhibitions, which is good. It's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly not good enough considering the amount of talent that is on this roster. They are scoring a ridiculous one point one four points per half court possession so far through four games at the Olympics, and this is to be expected. There's something

fundamentally different about playing basketball in this setting. I mean, especially when it comes to aggression and confidence. Like take Joel and Bif for example. He's been struggling with this

a lot. But like when you're on your NBA team and there's this clear hierarchy and it's like I'm gonna get my touches and it's okay if I miss two or three shots in the opening min it's like, how many times is a Devin Booker Steph Curry or like a pull up shooting guard like started the first quarter going one for five, and it just doesn't matter because they can play themselves into rhythm and start getting going there in that second quarter shift when they come back

in and maybe they're in good rhythm by the end of the game and they finish the game, you know, you know, nine for twenty or something like that, and still have a solid night despite starting poor from the field. And it's just a little different in a setting like this. You go out and you miss your first one or miss your second one, and all of a sudden, you're like, eah, like should I even be shooting? Like I'm not really feeling it right now, and I've got all these other

super talented guys on the team. Then you start to second guess yourself and the aggression kind of goes away. And what ends up happening is, especially in the early phases, guys just kind of like don't want to pull on the rope too hard because they don't want to kind of disrupt the flow of the rest of the team, and you're starting to actually see everybody kind of find

their role. Like Devin Booker, for instance, has been the guy who's been really gunning from the three point line with that starting group, hit a couple of really tough contested threes on the perimeter. And again remember in FEEBA ball, because of the defensive three second rule or the lack of one there, I should say, because of that, unique guys that are confident stepping up and shooting shots from

the perimeter. And every team is putting their best lock and trail guy on Steph and just chasing him around like crazy, and STEP's not getting open very much. And so Devin Booker's getting better looks and he's capitalizing on it. He's leaning into what this team needs him to be,

which is an aggressive three point shooter. Joel Embiid I thought that was kind of an interesting use of him today, Like he's still struggling with those like face up jab step jumpers from the mid range and large part because he's not getting the same calls that he gets in the NBA when he kind of sticks those arms out, which is good in my opinion, and players are pressing

up on him more and getting good contests. But you know where he is getting great looks from the three point line, and he was much more aggressive from the three point line today, both in catches at the top of the key during their five outsets, but also in transition just running his lane and a trailing to play and catching at the top of the key. That's a

value add for him with this team. That's the one thing he can do that Joel that at, Anthony Davis and bam Adebayo can't do at a high rate, which is hit above the break threes, and so he's leaning into that, right Like Lebron James early in the tournament struggling a little bit with turnovers, right to be expected, playing basically point guard for a team of a bunch of guys that are coming together for the first time. Right Well, only five total turnovers in the last two games,

so he's cut way back on his turnovers. He had nine assists today, So, like you could tell, Lebron is starting to kind of figure out how to run that starting unit. Anthony Edwards we talked a lot in the exhibition games about how I like him coming off the bench so he can just be super aggressive and not necessarily have to stress about pulling on the rope against Stephan Lebron. He can be in that bench unit and just look to gun. It's like Bam and Ad switching

every screen, stifling everything, getting a ton of stops. And that is Katie and Aunt being really aggressive with their over the top shooting, while Derek White runs around in circles and gets offensive rebound put backs and just continues to make dirty work plays that help his team win. But it's all coming together and they're starting to play

a really pretty band branded basketball again. Like their offense is up substantially from where it was in the exhibitions, their defense is even more stifling than it was in the exhibitions, even though it was always good, and they're

just playing at a really high level now. Serbia for the semi final game, has consistently played Tosa well, and with Yokic on the floor in particular, they've been pretty competitive, and so my guess is that they're gonna ramp Yokic's minutes up to as close to forty as they feel comfortable. They might give him a little bit of a rest in the first half, but don't be surprised if he plays the entire second half, and that's gonna be a

challenge for Team USA now Germany too. I think Germany is gonna beat France, but that's a close game that could go either way, so it's possible THATOSA could have a couple of tougher games here in the semi final. In the Championship, they'll be heavy favorites. They're seventeen and a half point favorites against Serbia on Thursday, but I'll be impressed if they dominate both games because I think Serbia and Germany are both good. They're gonna play really hard.

They have some specific things that they can do to kind of bog USA down. It'll be an interesting challenge. Although I do leave TMOSA we'll get through it. Our second quarterfinal game, Canada versus France, France came out with just incredibly stifling defense. By the way, I mentioned that

defense number earlier. In the half court with Team USA, France has been the second best half court defense so far in FIBA, Germany's been the second best overall defense, and France has been the second best half court defense. Victor Wembinyamo was playing a high drop coverage and was getting a bunch of deflections early. At a certain point, Canada just straight up stopped bringing Wemby into ball screens because the problems he was causing up at the level

of the screen. Nick Batum did a really nice job on Shake Gildos Alexander. He's got the length to contest pull up jump shots, and he was timing Shay's pull up really well. Shay, obviously still one of the best players in the world, found a way to get his points. I think he had like twenty seven or twenty nine or something like that, but I thought Batum defended him pretty well. Overall. Canada just came out guns blazing on the defensive end of the floor and then on the

offensive end of the floor. They just played through the post and Canada was switching screens and like they would run action and get Shae Gilders. Alexander switched on to Gershawan you busle and just throw it down to him on the block and then from there like he would just kind of bully his way to the basket. He bullied his way right to the front of the rim On sche for a layup. They were passing really well out of the post. Both Victor wemen Yama and gers

On you Bussell. The first bucket of the game. Wemby on the right on the left block just backing down and dragged I want to say Dwight Powell was guarding you. Busselet dragged Dwight Powell into the lane and then Ubuslet was wide open on the right wing and Wemby just hit him with a beautiful pass, knocks down the three U busle was I believe it was Shay was bullying Shay. Another time drew in a second defender, really nice drop off pass to Isaiah Cordinne and uh uh he ended

up getting a little dunk on the baseline. Then Victor wemen Yama did the same thing off the left block, catching posting. Isaiah Cardina just cuts really hard off of the slot. Wemby hits him, he draws a foul. That was like a big part of what's made France's offense work despite having limited perimeter initiators is a lot of action and through Webben Yama allowing him to function as a passer, and then obviously Yabuselet has been able to

bully some of Canada. Canada's guards as well. Isaiah Cardinier was huge early in this game. I talked about him cutting off of post ups and getting a dunk and then a foul. He also hit two like off the dribble transition pull up threes that were massive that put France up seventeen to five to start the game, and then from there Canada was basically fighting uphill the rest of the way, and you know, they kind of lingered in that five to seven point range, but down the stretch.

Evan Fournier, guy who only had one made field goal in the first three quarters, hits three shots in the final four minutes. Hits a bomb three off the right wing, another Victor wemben Yama post up, another double team from one pass away, another nice pass from Victor, and forty eight hits that bomb. He had a floater. It was kind of a weird play. It was an offensive foul, but they counted the basket. He had a driving floater at one point. It's a huge shot. That was right

after a big block from Victor Wembenyama. To this play where Dylan Brooks was posting up on the like kind of left elbow extended area and Victor just straight up abandoned his man as Dylan was turning and like straight up through a double team at Dylan Brooks and then blocked him on a fade away. And that's kind of like that thing I talk about a lot on the show, like defensive playmaking, which is essentially like outside of the game plan but seeing an opportunity and like trying to

be aggressive. Like it's not like France is on the sideline, Like, hey, Victor, if Dylan Brooks takes a fade away, you should double team because Dylan Brooks is not that good of a shooter. It's a shot. You live with the results. But hey, like, yeah, Victor just saw an opportunity. Was like, I don't think Dylan sees the floor right now, and I think I can block this shot. And he went for it and it got a huge stop for them, and then they

went down and scored. And then vic Evan Fortier hits another bomb three, this time on the left wing from like thirty five feet and now Franz is advancing to play Germany in the semi finals. Really impressed by Victor women Yam. I think he only had something like seven points, Like he didn't have a high scoring night, but he was dominant in the game defensively and dominate as a passer. Frances is a team that, especially with the home court advantage piece and with how hard they play on defense,

they can be pretty tough to hang with. And then Gobert had a hand injury, like a finger injury, but their coach said that they actually went away from Gobert and played Wenby at the five specifically for the matchup, and I thought that was really smart for the Canada matchup in particular, especially with how good Canada is on the perimeter defensively, Like, playing two bigs could really gum things up for you offensively, and like because you Buslize

just a little more skilled offensively, can catch and finish a lot better, can knock down three point shots. It just kind of gave them a more dynamic front court with those two guys. I thought that was the right call. Last note from this game. Jamal Murray was legitimately awful. He had He had seven points on thirteen shots. He

had one assists and three turnovers. That's not good when you have thirteen shot attempts in three turnovers and it generates literally what nine points, Like that's just not going to get it done. He came out the game, it's like right when he checked into the game. He was over penetrating and then trying to throw these like cross body passes that French dudes were just shooting the gap and getting steals and running out in transition the other way.

He can't get separation. He's not hitting his jump shot. He just looks slow and he looks out of shape, which, like I've been telling you guys, like some of the stuff I hear from the people that I trust, who are Denver fans and who cover the Nuggets, Like that's kind of the thing on Jamal right now, is he kind of shows up to this kind of stuff out of shape and tries to play his way into shape, and it's really bitting him on the ass in this tournament here at the Olympics. So it looks like the

game is moving too faster. I'm not sure if it's conditioning. I'm not sure if it's an injury that we're not sure about or what's going on. But like i'd be a little I'd be just a little bit worried about Jamal Murray if I was a Nuggets fan. Hopefully the embarrassment from this tournament leads him to really hit the gym hard over the course in the next couple of months so that he can come into camp ready to rock and.

But right now you can put all that intel to the test by bringing those patterns directly into a mock draft and make your mock draft feel like the real thing. Check out fantasypros dot com slash Volume today to get an edge over your league mates right now and forever.

only got zero point eighty seven. So that was kind of the big swing factor in this particular game is just Serbia didn't shoot well and Australia shot super well. But Serbia slowly worked their way back into it. They

really stepped up their defensive pressure on the perimeter. This is something I've been impressed with Serbia through this entire tournament and even into the exhibitions, Like for a team that doesn't have a lot of athleticism on the perimeter, they play really hard and they do actually they actually can be pretty disruptive just with the level of intensity that they bring on the perimeter. Jokic stepped up his defensive pressure. He was really active in a high drop coverage.

Instead of like dropping back and letting Giddy and Paddy Mills get into the short range, he was up at the level being active with his hands that actually ended up leading into switches which became a big deal in crunch time, which we'll get to in a minute. The other thing that really spearheaded the Serbia comeback was the offensive glass. They had ten offensive rebounds on the second and third quarters while they were making the comeback. Just

really really really aggressive to the rim. Guys just making extra efforts tap out rebounds, that kind of stuff, just buying extra possessions as they tried to generate chaos to get to get back in the game. They ended up cutting the lead to sixty to fifty nine with a couple of threes, and then the game really settled into

like kind of a classic rock fight from there. It was tied at seventy eight after a Josh Gitty left corner three, and then Josh Gitty foolishly just hacked down on Vascilla Jay Michich on a three point shot towards the end of the shot clock that puts Serbia up

eighty one to seventy eight. Josh Gitty ends up hitting this like kind of crazy, one legged, floating rising jump shot on the left side of the floor that cuts it to eighty one eighty and then it turned into classic rock fight basketball where like neither team could get a bucket, Butgdanovich missed a mid range shot. Michitch missed a mid range shot. On the other end, ge he

missed one of his floaters that he usually makes. Patty Mills missed a pretty tough shot from the mid range, so it's kind of just like stuck in the mud. And then Nikolejokic made a big play it got a guard on a switch and hit him with a spin move and that kind of forced Jack Landial to step up a little bit, so he threw a really nice over the top pass to a baseline cutter who I

think was Vascilla Jaymestitch. Again, he ended up going one for two from the line, so Serbia was up eighty two to eighty and then Patty Mills gets Nikole Jokic on a switch and hits. Jokis defended it really well, like straight up smothered him on like a step back eighteen footer from the left, elbow extended and Patty just sunk the shot. There was a throwback Patty Mills night.

You got a tip of the cap to him. He had twenty six points in this one that sent the game to ot and then Australia came out really hot and o Tea we're hitting shots, and they were actually up by three with about two and a half minutes left after Josh Giddy hit another big step back three over yokicch in a switch, and that's where Jokic really took over the game from when Australia went up I think they went up ninety to eighty seven, and then Yokic just completely takes over the game. He gets a

couple of huge stops on switches, he gets Giddy. Giddy had just hit a step back three on him right, so this time he like pressed up a little bit and kind of shaded his right hand because if he forces him to the left, Giddy always likes to get back to that right hand to finish because he really

likes to go to the floater. So he kind of like shaded up on Giddy's left hand up high enough to contest the step back that forced Giddy to drive, made a couple of really nice slides to beat him to the spot, and then when Giddy went back to his right hand on the right on the left side of the rim, Jokicic was able to easily block that shot that actually led to a runout the other way and a foul so Serbia cut it to ninety to eighty nine. So basically like a four point swing on

Nikole Jokic making a huge play on a switch. Then he gets another huge stop. This time he gets Patty Mills could switched down on Patty Mills, and this was where kind of FEEBA rules took over. Patty actually beat Yolkic off the dribble, got all the way the rim and had an easy layup and it would have gone in, but the layup had some spin on it. It was coming around the rim. It was gonna kind of toilet

bowl its way into the basket. Jokic makes an extra effort, comes flying in and swats the ball off the top of the rim. It's just kind of an unusual play that you're not used to seeing in the NBA, obviously with the rules, but huge. Another huge play from Jokic to get a stop against Patty Mills, and then Jokic

actually went down and turned it over. Patty Mills goes down, Jokic swipes it from Patty Mills again, So even though it was off of a Jokic mistake, three massive defensive plays from Nikola Jokic in a row, and then there was kind of like a little bit of a chaotic sequence, a little two man game on the left wing with Jokic that works downhill, hit a baseline cutter. As the baseline cutter came around, Jokic relocated right to kind of

the front of the rim. Baseline cutter dropped it off the Yokic he hit his patented little left shoulder hook that he hits like seventy five percent of the time,

and that put Serbia up by one. And then Giddy actually ended up getting Yokic on a switch again and wanted nothing to do with it as soon as you got your because on the switch, he just picked up his ribble, passed out of it and McVeigh ended up missing a baseline jump shot for Australia, and then Jokich just ice is the game on the right block patented Nikole Jokic left shoulder one like fadeaway or the Somber shuffle as you guys know it, where he kind of

fades over his left shoulder but then steps back and comes off and lifts his left knee up and just hits that little drifting jumper on the baseline that puts Serbia up three Australia turned it over on the inbounds on the other end of the floor, and Australia is eliminated and Serbia is advancing to the semi finals. Just jokis just classic best player in the world. Stuff there down the stretch of that game is really really fun to watch as Serbia advances. And then the last game.

I'm not gonna spend too much time on this one because I only caught the second half of it, but Grease was up by five at one point in the mid third third quarter, and Franz Wagner like really really looked good down the stretch of this game, super confident with his jump shot. All of a sudden in the

second half. He hasn't shot well in Fiba, but he hit a huge step back three, had a really like right shoulder fade away like tough shots like he had another kind of like spinning left shoulder hook on another drive on the left side. These were those like little mid range shots that he was missing in the Cavs series.

And so between that and just how confident he looked hunting his jump shot, he got fouled on a step back three on the left wing, where like he confidently went into it and the defender knew he felt good, so he was like really out on it and he ended up drawing a foul. I thought that was kind of encouraging, even in a very small sample size, just because of how poor of a shooting season froanz Wagner had last year and how poor he shot the ball

in Foba up until this particular game. And Germany defended Giannis really well. They built the wall, they got back on transition, they rotated to shooters, and they've looked really good in the tournament. Like I mentioned earlier, they have been the second best overall defense in the tournament behind USA. My predictions for the semi finals, Germany is a four

and a half point favored over France. They're the better team, especially with their perimeter initiators like franz Wagner and Dennish are just a level above what you're gonna get in terms of like Evan forty a and Frank Melaquina and those guys initiating offense for France. But then again, like the home court advantage thing and just how hard France plays on defense, I could see that game going either way.

Germany is a four and a half point favorite. I will pick Germany for now, but I could see that game going either way. And then, like I mentioned earlier, USA is a seventeen and a half point favorite against Serbia. Worth mentioning, both of the first two matchups between Serbia and the USA were pretty close for the first half, and then generally they've played USA really close with Jokic on the floor, so look for Jokic to step up as minutes. Look for that to be a really physical

and intense game. But Tisa, I expect to really put their foot to the pedal to the metal, and they're just playing really good basketball right now, so I think they'll end up getting it done, and I think we'll end up getting USA Germany in the final. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always to

sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We're gonna be back on Thursday to cover the semi finals and then again on Saturday to cover the final and do a mailbag, and then don't forget, we start our player ranking stuff next week. I will see you guys.