I’ve always blamed that loss on free throw shooting rather than Smith.

I used to blame that loss on the underwear I was wearing. Then I realized that I had a mental illness, which wasn’t the thinking that my underwear was somehow unlucky, but was the construct of blame itself, which is actually a social disorder caused by the ego’s insecure transference of guilt onto a nonproprietary entity.

(haha just kidding fbi)

I remember game 5 vividly, I think we missed 20 free throws in that game. There was one point we kept getting awarded technicals for illegal defense and every Knick under the sun failed to knock down the FT.

Unsurprisingly, my vivid recollection wasn’t that great. We missed 15 free throws (out of 35 attempts). And it was only John Starks and Patrick Ewing who missed the technicals.

We had a 35-23 advantage at the line. Riley had worked the officials hard in the press after 2 losses in Chicago. It worked, but his players couldn’t capitalize.

great job josh hart…a couple of days ago i was thinking there’s no way he makes the olympic roster…hali, banchero, reaves and hart are really shining so far this tournament…

https://theathletic.com/4821395/2023/08/31/team-usa-josh-hart-brandon-ingram-steve-kerr-fiba-world-cup/

But first, the lineup change. Kerr made it sound like at least part of the change he made was permanent-permanent, as in, Ingram is going to come off the bench for the rest of the tournament. What Kerr does at the four spot could change eventually, but Hart, who is 6 foot 5, is going to start against a Montenegro team that features four-time NBA All-Star center Nikola Vučević (6-10) and has seven players who are at least 6-8.

“Josh is our leading rebounder, had 12 more last night,” Kerr said, citing Hart’s rebound total against Jordan. “He has a strength and a tenacity to him that sometimes overcomes a height disadvantage. He’s used to guarding bigger guys with all the switching that happens in the NBA, so we go into a game comfortable with Josh as the starting four.”

But there’s a caveat to Kerr’s thinking, because, not only is Montenegro big, but Lithuania is too. Lithuania, like the USA, went undefeated in pool play and is led by the New Orleans Pelicans big man Jonas Valančiūnas and has six players who are at least 6-9.

Obviously, many of these big men will not be as good as the PFs in the NBA, but this should be an interesting proof of concept in the idea for us.