The U.S. has just 1 win between men’s and women’s Olympic 3×3 basketball. Why? : NPR

Australia’s Anneli Maley (24) and Lauren Mansfield (33) defend Hailey van Lith, of the United States, in the women’s 3×3 basketball pool round match Thursday during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Australia won 17-15.

Frank Franklin II/AP

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Frank Franklin II/AP

PARIS — If there’s one sport Team USA is supposed to have cornered in international play, it’s basketball.

But that’s not been true on the half-court at the Paris Olympics this week.

For the women’s 3×3 basketball squad, it took until their fourth game to find a win. The men have yet to win a single of their four games so far. As of now, both teams sit at the bottom of their pools.

What’s the deal?

Well, for one, this is a different ball game. The 3×3 discipline is shorter, faster, and newer, having debuted at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Another thing: It’s not their main job.

The players on the women’s team, used to playing full-court 5-on-5, are coming together for the first time straight from the WNBA, with less than two weeks before their first game.

And most of the male 3×3 players — none of whom currently play for the NBA, considered to be the best men’s basketball league in the world — subsidize their play with a full-time job. Qualifying for the Olympic team — which the U.S. failed to do in 2021 — is a big commitment. NBA players just don’t have the time. Meanwhile, everyone else is getting better.

On top of that, ailments have beset both teams from the start of the Games.

Here’s how it’s played out for them in Paris so far.

The women finally grab a win

Dearica Hamby, Rhyne Howard, Hailey van Lith and Cierra Burdick are seeking to defend the women’s title. It wasn’t looking good after their third-in-a-row loss.

They had lost to Germany in their opening game, and again to Azerbaijan. After that first game, van Lith said she’d been battling a cold. On Thursday, they again struggled to find their groove against Australia who, in the team’s Olympic debut, beat the Americans 17-15.

Except for Hamby’s signature blocks, their defense had been slow and their indecisive offense stuck — a problem in an event that’s supposed to be a fast-paced, street-ball-style sprint. In 3×3, you have to come out of the gate quick: each game is only 10 minutes, a quarter of an WNBA game.

After the Aussie loss, with LeBron James in the crowd to support (and, according to van Lith, to also learn how to play 3×3), the women turned it around in a game against the pool leader, Spain, beating them 17-11.

“Before the game we felt we were playing tight so we just wanted to play loose and play with no pressure because the only people putting pressure on us was ourselves,” van Lith said after the game. “Our goal was to play loose and have fun and hopefully that showed.”

A stronger defense tipped the game in their favor.

“We switched up our strategy. We went for more deflections,” she said. “We also focused on limiting offensive rebounds.”

Looking ahead, she said, they plan to keep up “that type of purpose and fire.”

“Even when things did not go our way, we played hard,” she said. “If we can keep doing that, we will be in a lot of ball games.”

The women play France and Canada on Friday.

The men extend their losing streak

Jimmer Fredette has a leg injury, leaving the U.S. without a substitute. Fredette, the former Brigham Young University superstar who’s played for the NBA, looked in pain toward the end of squad’s loss to Poland on Wednesday night.

By late afternoon, before the game, Fredette’s teammates — Dylan Travis, Kareem Maddox, Canyon Barry — learned he would be sidelined indefinitely, hours ahead of a game against defending gold medalist Latvia on Thursday night. The rest of the team came up just short of a tie, ending 18-20.

“We do not have Jimmer, who is one of the best shooters in the world,” Travis said. “He is the focal point of our offence, so we had to move the ball a little bit more with the three of us and do some different things. We did that (moved the ball), but we missed some (two-point shots) at the end.”

They play France and China on Friday.

“It is hard with only three players,” Barry said. “We will keep battling. We are not out of it yet.”

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