Popovich rips reporter as dissection of Team USA’s defeat to France begins

Team USA coach Gregg Popovich was at his snarly best as America tried to decipher just what went wrong at the Basketball World Cup.

Despite his insistence it was disrespectful for the reaction to Team USA’s defeat to France in the Basketball World Cup quarterfinals to focus on the American NBA players who chose not to play in China, Gregg Popovich ensured that’s exactly where it remained with a typically rude response to a reporter.

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As the media back in the US began relisting all the superstars that weren’t available as the basketball powerhouse grappled with a 89-79 defeat, one reporter actually attempted to ask a question related to what happened in the game.

Donovan Mitchell had been a shining light for Team USA, pouring in 29 points in a largely solo effort, but he went scoreless in the fourth quarter as the Americans fell short.

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Surely the coach and Mitchell himself — who were both chosen to front the post-match press conference — had a perspective on what changed.

“Did they (France) take Donovan away in the fourth or did you guys maybe go away from him a little bit?” the reporter asked.

He may as well not have bothered. Mitchell interjected saying, “No. No they didn’t” and was backed by his coach.

“No no, just write, don't coach,” Popovich said. “Just write.”

Classic Pop in China.

“Just write, don’t coach. Just write” pic.twitter.com/tIJ8SkAheW

— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) September 11, 2019

This just seconds after Popovich’s lecture about it being a “disrespectful notion to even bring something like (the stars who withdrew) up”.

“That’s disrespectful to France and whoever else is in this tournament,” he said with an edge. “France beat us. It doesn’t matter who was on the team.”

While he was complimentary to France, labelling them “the best French team I’ve seen”, the long-time San Antonio Spurs mentor offered nothing on what had gone wrong for his outfit and Mitchell wasn’t much better.

“We didn’t lock in on certain possessions,” Mitchell said. “Obviously we had some mistakes where we missed some lay-ups.”

So what did go wrong with the players Team USA had?

Kemba Walker was outplayed by Frank Ntilikina. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Largely because of a 14-point third quarter explosion by Mitchell, Pop’s guys were up 76-71 with just over five minutes remaining in the game when the wheels started to fall off.

Nicolas Batum outhustled Jaylen Brown on the offensive glass to clean up a Evan Fournier miss before Mitchell missed a mid-range jumpshot.

Frank Ntkilina buried a three-pointer in a slow-to-react Harrison Barnes’ face after a Rudy Gobert screen forced a switch with Mitchell to tie the scores, before the man expected to be the team’s closer, Kemba Walker, failed to score on back-to-back possessions, missing a fadeaway and a lay-up in traffic.

Team USA’s indecision on defence then led to another score as Mitchell waited for help that never came and coughed up an easy lay-up to Fournier to lose the lead.

Barnes burned good post position by losing his balance and travelling before the Gobert pick-and-roll produced another easy basket as another switch left Marcus Smart overmatched in the post and the big French centre slammed it home.

The Celtics guard compounded a bad minute by following that with two missed free throws before Ntikilina hit a tough long jumper over Walker to cap an 11-point run.

Donovan Mitchell was unstoppable for three quarters. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu / AFP)

A Walker lay-up was the only score in the next minute as both defences stood firm — including Gobert who snuffed out a Mitchell lay-up with a come-from-behind block he’ll savour for the rest of his life.

Any hope the US had from that point was lost at the free throw line. Nando De Colo nailed two for France before Walker stunningly missed two of three after drawing Gobert in the air on a triple attempt.

From 84-79, De Colo hit 5/6 from the charity stripe and there was no way back for the Americans.

Those final five minutes played out like many NBA games where the action slows a teams turn to their stars to make plays one-on-one. Unfortunately the USA didn’t have the stars to make them and France executed them to death on the other end as Gobert (21 points, 16 rebounds, three blocks), Fournier (22 points, 4/8 threes, four assists), De Colo (18 points) and Ntikilina (11 points, three assists) were all immense.

“Gobert was too big for them, France’s ball movement and pick-and-rolls often just a little too good,” wrote ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “France looked like the better team, more or less, for a majority of the game.”

Grumpy Gregg. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The statsheet told some of the story too as France dominated the boards 44-28 and scored double the points off turnovers (22-11) despite having one more giveaway than the US.

Walker wasn’t the go-to-guy this team needed, going 2/9 from the field, while Barnes put up just four points and two rebounds in 32 minutes as a somewhat forced decision to play small backfired.