The FIBA World Cup is the only week away to be played in China but the team US does not seem to be in good condition and Australia was the first one to deliver that message out loud on Saturday.
For the very first time in the past 13 years, the roster of the team US with notable NBA players played an international game and they lost. Patty Mills led the Australian team with his 30 points on way to defeating the US by 98-94 t0 snap US’s long winning streak of 78 games.
This streak of US team started with then winning the game for Bronze Medal for the 2006 World Championships.
Kemba Walker, the guard of team US said, “They wanted this win more than us tonight. A lesson is learned by us.”
This is the first loss of team US since they lost the semi-finals of the 2006 world championship playing against Greece. They only won the bronze medal in that year and after that, they were unbeaten for the 2007 FIBA Americas, Olympics of 2008, Olympics of 2012, World Cup of 2014 and then Olympics of 2016.
Adding all those championships wins with them now winning this year early matches with Spain and then Australia on Thursday, their winning streak adds up to 78 matches which is the longest by any other team in the history of the program. Now it is all over.
Mills said, “It was so awesome.”
As for Australia, they had never previously defeated the US and were actually 30-0 against team US.
This is a world cup where Serbia has shown that they are aiming for the Gold, Greece is being led by the NBA MVP player Giannis Antetokounmpo and France has a shot for the medal as well.
To top it all off, Australia now knows that they are now able to beat the US; the coming week is going to be filled with some amazing games.
Up next for team US is the exhibition game against Australia on Monday in Sydney. As for Australia, they will play the World Cup opener against Canada on September 1st held in Dongguan, China.
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