2024 Olympics - Women's Basketball - Gold!

We are over-dribbling and when we pass, we aren’t getting them off cleanly. Also, we are boxing out well, but have been very vulnerable to getting it poked away as we try to secure it, leading to a ton of offensive rebounds for France. It doesn’t help when they hit a literal half-court three as the shot clock winds down. The score is all even at 23 with 2:45 to play in the first half.
 
23-23. France is setting picks, running planes, getting mismatches and scoring points. We are almost exclusively going one on one.
 
Replay shows Salaun literally holding down A’ja Wilson’s shoulder as she tries to get a rebound - no call. It is just crazy how much grabbing, pushing, holding and hacking is being permitted in this game. We are clearly the better, more skilled team if they would let us play basketball.

And that’s true even though the fouls are something like France - 14, U.S. - 2.

Tied at the half, but with just 25 points apiece.
 
The USA women appear to be intimidated by France's persistent physical contact and as a result the USA players look very shaky. Giving up way too many possessions because of turnovers (some just lazy passes, others because France is grabbing or bumping our players, thereby causing them to be unable to reach passes) and rebounds (again, some due to laziness or lack of effort, and others because France is outfighting our players for the ball). Most frustrating to me is watching Wilson and Stewart miss shot after shot; Wilson alone has missed 6 layups. I'd like to see the USA women come out in the second half and match France's physicality on defense, even if the fouls aren't called evenly, since I assume that quality of depth would tend to work in our favor.
 
I'm disappointed to see the USA women start the second half by playing such loose defense -- giving France's players huge amounts of room to put up uncontested shots.
 
We're just playing bad. France has a lot to do with this by uglying up the game and being incredibly physical. But we aren't helping ourselves by missing a bunch of shots in the paint.
 
chrishoke said:
I'm sorry, but complaining about the refs is for losers. We need to adjust.
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I agree that we need to adjust. We didn’t muscle up that entire half, and we haven’t adjusted yet in the second. We like to play inside, but dribble drives into triple teams in such a physical game is not going to work.
 
Better passing these last few sequences. When the game is physical, ball movement is the key. We’ve got a two-point lead after three, despite giving up 10 straight to start the second half. It’s been an impressive comeback fueled by crisp passing. More of that, please.
 
Phredd3 said:
Better passing these last few sequences. When the game is physical, ball movement is the key. We’ve got a two-point lead after three, despite giving up 10 straight to start the second half. It’s been an impressive comeback fueled by crisp passing. More of that, please.
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Phredd3 said:
Better passing these last few sequences. When the game is physical, ball movement is the key. We’ve got a two-point lead after three, despite giving up 10 straight to start the second half. It’s been an impressive comeback fueled by crisp passing. More of that, please.
Click to expand...
And much better weak-side defense.
 
chrishoke said:
I'm sorry, but complaining about the refs is for losers. We need to adjust.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but not recognizing that the refs are not enforcing the rules to the point that the game being played is no longer basketball definitely is for losers. If we had known that the game was going to be neanderball we could have brought women from our wrestling team. Announcers finally are willing to call the travesty for what it is. That has little bearing on all the missed open shots by our players, but FIBA refs gonna FIBA ref to help home team.
 
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