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Mikal Bridges 24 points leads Team USA to FIBA World Cup semi-finals

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Italy v USA: Quarter Final - FIBA Basketball World Cup Photo by Yong Teck Lim/Getty Images

Apparently stung by its loss to Lithuania on Sunday — and resultant criticism back home and at the FIBA World Cup, Team USA blasted Italy Tuesday, 100-73, with Mikal Bridges leading the way with 24 points and seven rebounds, easily his best performance in Cup play.

The Nets forward shot 8-of-11 overall and 4-of-6 from beyond the arc In addition to his seven rebounds, Bridges registered two steals and a block. He also came away with a +20 for the game. Bridges currently leads Team USA in +/-.

The win sends the Americans to the Cup’s Final Four which starts Friday when the U.S. faces the winner of the Germany-Latvia quarter-final match-up early Wednesday morning, New York time. A win on Friday would put the U.S. in the World Cup Finals Sunday. Team USA last won gold in 2014 when Kyrie Irving was MVP.

“I just stay aggressive, that’s what it is,” said Bridges post-game. “Just that force and being aggressive. We’re all confident. No matter how many points we score, we’re all ready. We’re all ready to make that shot, we’re all ready to make a play..

“I mean look at the guys we’re playing with. Everyone can go out and score, everybody is the main guy on their team. We’re just ready for the moment.”

The game was Bridges second straight solid game. Although he missed a crucial 3-pointer with just under 10 seconds left vs. Lithuania, he scored 14 in that contest. Indeed, in his last two games, Bridges has played 45 minutes, scored 38 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, shot 13-of-19 overall (68.4%) including 6–of-9 (66.7%) from 3. He is now the Americans’ second leading scorer at 12.0 and second most efficient player as well. He’s also tops in +/-.

“I just stay aggressive, that’s what it is,” he said. “Just that force and being aggressive. We’re all confident. No matter how many points we score, we’re all ready. We’re all ready to make that shot, we’re all ready to make a play. That’s never gonna go nowhere.”

“We just got dogs in our locker room. We all know what we can do. We can all shoot, dribble, pass, defend, do everything. I mean look at the guys we’re playing with. Everyone can go out and score; everybody is the main guy on their team. We’re just ready for the moment. Anybody.”

There were highlights aplenty...

Having Bridges take the lead was a conscious change in strategy by Steve Kerr, Team USA’s head coach. While Anthony Edwards has led the Americans’ scoring effort throughout Cup play and before that in the team’s “friendlies” leading up the Cup, the Timberwolves’s wing essentially served as a decoy vs. Italy. Edwards didn’t score at all in the first half and finished with only three points on 1-of-6 shooting. But he racked up three assists as a secondary playmaker.

Bridges praised Edwards post-game for his unselfishness.

“Ant could get 30 whatever he wants, like easily,” said Bridges. “We talked to him and tried to help him out just to find guys, and that’s what he did. And he’s probably the happiest dude in the locker room right now.

“So, you know, shout out to Ant for that and he knows how dominant he is. … I think we kind of fed off that, you know, once we saw Ant doing that and how happy he was, and everybody kind of had that joy as well.”

The U.S. also had a good start, something that it needed after going down by 21 early vs. Lithuania, again led by Bridges who had 14 points in the first half. By the end of the second quarter, the game was out-of-reach for the Italians who suffered their worst loss in international play since the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

“We just felt that energy from the jump,” Bridges said. “Everybody felt it.”

Whatever hope Italy had, Bridges turned to despair when he scored 10 straight in the third.

Kerr attributed the turnaround to his team’s understanding that the end of the journey approaches.

“It’s been a journey for this group, and there’s five more days — that’s how we look at it,” Kerr said. “We’re the horse turning back to the barn. The horse starts picking up the pace when it senses it’s near the barn, and that’s what’s happening right now. Our guys are sensing this is the end of the journey.”

While there’s been a lot of attention paid to Edwards scoring and Austin Reaves’ impetuous play, Bridges, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN wrote, has been the “steadiest” of Kerr’s charges. Windy also spoke of how Bridges dominated Tuesday’s game...

Bridges spoke as well about his rebounding numbers, saying he went into Tuesday’s game understanding they needed to be better.

“Honestly I was really locked in on rebounding and that’s kind of been my struggle,” he said.

“It’s the same Mikal, every night. He has that mindset, no matter what,” said Jalen Brunson, Bridges’ college teammate at Villanova. “He’s able to do it all. I’ve seen it since the first day I met him.”

In a moment of comedy, a FIBA ref called a technical on Bridges after he flashed his now famous — and much copied — 3-point celebration with the U.S. up 26, called it taunting.

Bridges didn’t just excel on the offensive end. He guarded Simone Fontecchio, the 6’7” Jazz wing and the only NBA player on the Italian roster. Although Fontecchio ultimately finished with 18 points, his Cup average, he and the rest of the Italian starters never got untracked with the U.S. trapping them early. Of its first 24 shots, Italy made seven. Fontecchio finished the first half 2-of-9 with two turnovers.

Cam Johnson played only garbage time for the U.S. and didn’t score in 10 minutes of play.

Meanwhile, Lithuania was eliminated Tuesday afternoon by Serbia whose defense was led by Nets stash. 6’11” center Nikola Milutinov. Serbia plays the winner of Canada vs. Slovenia on Friday.

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