BARCELONA—Another slow start from Team USA, thanks to Lithuania finding a way to make it ugly early. That seems to be the recipe for staying in games against the United States — force their hand to play sloppy by slowing the game down with fouls, reach in to deflect errant dribbles, and try to cut off the paint as much as you can. For a while in this game, Lithuania managed to do that. They were down five points after the first quarter and kept it to eight points after the first 20 minutes.But the problem with this recipe is the United States has been great at turning the sloppiness and chippiness into motivation to really pour the points on their opponents. They’ve typically been great about accomplishing this in the second quarter and not even letting it really get to the halftime before they grab control of the game. If they can’t get you before the third quarter, they always come out of the half with a blowout on their mind. That’s exactly what happened here as the effort and execution met the talent, and the Lithuanian team couldn’t stop them from scoring at will.Klay Thompson kept Team USA in the lead in the first half and Kyrie Irving was able to really seal the game in the second half. Mixed into their performances was a concerted effort to keep Jonas Valanciunas from putting his mark on this game unless he was going to do it from the free throw line. He scored 11 of his 15 points at the charity stripe and only made two baskets on five attempts from the field. And as highly touted as Lithuania’s frontcourt is, Team USA pounded them on the offensive glass, grabbing 18 offensive boards.Team USA didn’t let Lithuania get good shots from outside and held their 3-point shooting to just 2-of-18 for the game. The strategy of keeping the game ugly eventually broke, and it was Lithuania which lived at the line and failed to find a rhythm on offense. This led to the Americans using their defense to start many scoring opportunities in the open floor and get plenty of quick strikes in the halfcourt as well. They scored as many points (33) in the third quarter as Lithuania did for the entire second half.Derrick Rose scored 4 points,shooting 1-for-8 from the field.

THREE STARS: 1. Klay Thompson. You can’t say enough about how well Thompson has played in this tournament, especially the last few games. He’s set himself up to be in rhythm for jumpers, which basically become layups for him. He’s also creating off the dribble against weaker defenders and using his size advantage to get to his scoring spot and control his body for a quality attempt. He had 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting in Thursday’s game, along with three rebounds and three assists in 26 minutes. He had 14 of those 16 points in the first half.
2. Kyrie Irving. If there is one criticism of Irving in this tournament, it’s that the ball seems to stick to his hands a little too much at times. He hasn’t done a great job moving it ahead to teammates in the open court and seems to dribble a little too much in those situations. Even so, he’s still the leading assist man for Team USA to this point. When Irving is scoring like he did Thursday, I’m not sure you want him passing much at all. His body control is so good around the basket that you can’t really bother him with a big defender. Lithuania thrives on using their size to intimidate guards in the paint. That didn’t work with Irving today. He was the leading scorer in the game with 18 points. Half of his buckets came at the basket, and the other half came off jumpers. He even dished out four assists. Irving was as lethal with the ball as you could hope in this environment.
3. James Harden. It was not a unique development for viewers to see Harden put together a poor defensive performance once again, though it was even worse in the first half of this game because he was in foul trouble and trying to avoid picking up a third. He more than made up for that bad defense with his scoring, though. Harden has been hunting less contact recently, and it’s helping him become a more balanced and effective scorer for Team USA. He finished with 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting, knocked down a couple of 3-pointers, and was a terror going to the basket. He also did a good job of finding a way to create turnovers off the ball, racking up three steals in the process.
NOTES—Team USA will face the winner of Serbia vs. France in the FIBA Basketball World Cup gold medal game on Sunday.