Team USA is very good ... and extremely lucky

A strong finish to group play followed by a(nother) fortuitous draw.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Sea Coast in Normandy; Gustave Courbet; 1867

Team USA’s final game in group play — a 21-point win over Puerto Rico — went about as well as possible. The P.R. hit a slew of threes early to put pressure on the reigning gold medalists, so Team USA leaned in on run-and-gun offense with LeBron James orchestrating the break and Anthony Edwards finishing everything (inside and out). But halftime, the game was fully under control as the Boricuas stopped hitting their shots. Here are the highlights.

Unlocking Edwards’ offense is important — he’s the most explosive athlete on the team and no one in the world can stop him. He’s also the youngest player on the team and the best potential inheritor of the legacy of a quadrule-Olympiad peformer like Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant. (Jayson Tatum is also headed for that legacy.)

The big margin also landed Team USA in the top pot for seeding purposes, along with Germany, who haven’t lost a tournament game in two summers and beat France handily on Friday. Canada went undefeated just like Team USA and Germany, but because Canada was in the most competitive group in modern Olympic basketball history, they didn’t build up the point differential of the Americans or Germans. So in the draw for the knockouts, they got placed into the second pot, meaning either Germany or the United States would need to face them in the semifinals.

The United States already had the easiest draw in the group phase. And somehow, they landed the easiest draw in the knockout phase, too.