I don't think there were too many people who were at all worried about the USA suffering a shock loss to Puerto Rico in the last game that is played before the group stages. I for one questioned why it is that Puerto Rico competes as its own nation in the Olympics and I just assumed that athletes from that place would compete with the United States since Puerto Rico takes part in USA elections and can travel to and from the USA at will without a passport. I looked it up and found out that Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States but the IOC or Olympics committee views the country as a separate entity and therefore they are required or allowed to compete as a separate country. I suppose if they were talented enough and wanted to, that Puerto Ricans could simply travel to USA and compete under that flag. Whatever! I don't care enough to do any more research about that.
It doesn't surprise anyone that the game was a very one-sided affair with USA absolutely dominating PR and the score could have been a lot higher if USA hadn't stepped on the brakes in the 4th quarter.
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The USA started out slow and were actually trailing after the 1st quarter. But anyone that watches basketball regularly knows that this normally doesn't mean a damn thing and often, the games are determined in the final 5 minutes of the 4th quarter. When the 2nd quarter began I think it was evident that the USA wasn't really trying as hard as they can in the first quarter, because the end of the first half saw USA outscore PR 39-16 in 2nd quarter action and honestly, I think they could have been doing exactly that right from the get go. Basketball is a funny sport like that: Many times teams will spend most of the 1st quarter just sizing up their opponent and getting used to the rhythm of the opposing team's play style. Sometimes teams show too much of their overall strategy in the 1st quarter and while no one would have bet on Puerto Rico to actually win this game, it was evident from the 2nd quarter onward that USA is by far a superior team.
At times it seemed as though team USA was just toying with their opponent, doing strange things like setting up their center, Philly's Joel Embiid for 3 pointers that he really should never be taking. People who know erupted into applause when he actually made one of them though.
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I find when international players who are not in the NBA trying to square up with Embiid on an attack to be quite humorous. This guy is an absolute menace of a bball player and he frequently makes people look a little bit silly when he does something like the above. "Siddown little boy," I can hear him saying. Thankfully, the NBA stars have a tendency to be a lot more mild mannered when they are competing in the Olympics than when they are playing back in their home teams.
This is the reason why I think that USA was a bit benevolent in the 4th quarter. They clearly had PR's number and the defense was just astounding by the Americans. Puerto Rico went on to take almost exclusively 3 pointers and they missed a lot of them but made a few and ended up outscoring USA in the 4th quarter only because they were allowed to by a team that was no longer trying to stay ahead, but knew they were already far enough ahead that they had a lot of breathing room. Some of the dunks they set up and trick plays were the type of showboating that team USA is famous for, and the crowd absolutely loved it.
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When Anthony Edwards nailed his windmill dunk in the 4th with PR's defense not even trying to stop him, it was evident that this game was over long before it was over.
Sometimes I appreciate when games end up like this because we don't find ourselves in a situation where the coaches are trying to play the clock like a game of chess and thus make the 4th quarter take about 5x as long as it should. It gets annoying when the clock is stopped a lot more frequently than it is actually moving.
So the question now is what team, if any, has any sort of chance at defeating the USA side? Some point to Germany and Serbia, but honestly, I don't think that anyone can really pose a reasonable threat to USA if they are going all out from start to finish.
Their next game is vs. Brazil on the 6th of August and the bookies are already choosing team USA to win by 15 point or more. I think that if USA wants it and plays hard from start to finish that they could easily win that game by double that amount of points.