Additional Quotes >> USA 86, France 50

July 3, 2012 • Kaunas, Lithuania

USA head coach Don Showalter (Iowa City High School, Iowa)
On tonight’s game:
We’ve put in kind of a different line-up in every game so far. We decided we would switch it up a little bit. We started guys who we felt would give us the initial burst out of the gate defensively,77 and it seemed to work.

One of the things that we have is really good depth. When we bring kids off the bench, we don’t lose anything. When you bring guys off the bench you still keep up that pressure and that’s what we wanted to do against France. We held them to 24 points in the first half, which doesn’t really happen very often with a 24-second shot clock. We really played well defensively. We started out the game by setting the tone, which we hadn’t really done in the last couple games. When you can set the tone in the game, you have the other team playing catch-up and I think we’re pretty hard to play catch-up against.

On the play of Stanley Johnson and Jahlil Okafor against France:
Jahlil, there’s not many guys who can stop him. They were trying to double-team him, triple-team him at times and I thought our kids did a really good job of getting him the ball. We’re coming together to a point where they feel real comfortable in knowing what has to be done to score. If we can get Jahlil the ball every time, he’s going to score every time.

Stanley’s play improved as the game went on. He missed some easy ones early, but as the game went on he just went out and played the way he can. I think he was thinking too much the first half instaed of playing. Stanley’s a really talented individual.  When you pair that 6-7 frame with quickness and defensive intensity, he’s pretty good.

Do you see the chemistry building as the tournament progresses?
We’re much better now than we were when we first came over here. We have players playing different positions than they might play in their high school or their AAU team, but they’re all fitting in really well. The more we keep playing, the more chemistry we get. I felt we got a lot of confidence because of the fact that we started out really good defensively and I think that gives us a lot of confidence.

BeeJay Anya (DeMatha Catholic H.S. / Gaithersburg, Md.)
On tonight’s game:
Dakari (Johnson) got hurt (groin strain), so I had to step in and play some minutes for him. I think I came out and tried to play as hard as I could and hopefully stay on the court as long as I could, too. I knew that if I played hard and produced I would stay out on the court.

Tonight my team was so intense from the first quarter to the fourth quarter. I think that was huge for us. Playing without Jabari (Parer) today, we had to play good. We had a lot of defensive intensity. It caused a lot of turnovers. We got a lot of stops on defense.

What kind of team is France?
France is a very good team from the inside-out. They have shooters, they have bigs. They’re strong. They play hard. They have my respect and I know they have coach’s respect, too. They came out here, played hard and did the best they could.

Do you feel the team is developing good chemistry?
Definitely. Every game we play our chemistry picks up. We’re getting more used to playing with each other now and hopefully by the medal game we’ll have complete chemistry.

Joel Berry (Lake Highland Prep / Apopka, Fla.)
The team came out with a lot of intensity from the beginning. Were you pleased with that?
Yes, I think that was our problem before. We were starting out pretty slow. For me starting, that’s not my first priority. If I come off the bench, that’s fine. He started me tonight and I just tried to do what I always do and that’s to bring the intensity.

Do you think you surprised France with the different line-up and the way you started?
I think so. I think they didn’t expect us to start out with our press, our full-court press. That hit them pretty good. They didn’t know what hit them and it worked.

Do you feel the team is developing good chemistry?
Yes. Coach stressed about everybody being on the same page and everybody being committed to the same goal. I think that over the last day everybody is pretty much on the same page and going for the same thing.

How important is this team’s depth?
It’s great to have that, because it happens sometimes, especially when you get into foul trouble. With our team you can go out there and give it your all and know that somebody else is going to come in and bring the same intensity.

Stanley Johnson (Mater Dei H.S. / Fullerton, Calif.)
On tonight’s game:
France switched defenses a lot. They played a man, a zone, a three-two and a one-three-one. So, they kind of made us play different offenses that we’ve been working on, so it was kind of an adjustment for us. We just had to adjust really quickly and then start playing our basketball again.

They seemed to be keying on Jahlil Okafor on the inside, did that allow your outside game to open up?
Yes. That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen. When he starts dominating inside they crash down and as soon as they crash down we’re going to have shooters open and penetrators who can get to the lane. They (crashed down on Okafor) and we adjusted to their defense and we got back into our game.

Do you think you surprised France by the way you started tonight?
It was really the coaches changing up the defenses. We went from like a 22 to a 23 to a 21, which is three different levels of the court. It’s different looks. They were kind of confused with what was coming. They would try to anticipate a trap and when we were trapping, I was just shadowing the ball. It’s all thanks to the coaches and their game plan.

How important is this team’s depth in terms of being able to go hard every possession?
It’s definitely easier on everybody because you’re only playing half the game or whatever minutes we’re getting. We’re not as tired as we usually would be. We come out fresh every game. Basically in every game we’re coming our fresher than the other team, because their stars are playing 30-35 minutes. We’re only playing 20, 21, maybe 17. The more depth you have, the better. The more people who get in, the better.

Jahlil Okafor (Whitney Young H.S. / Chicago, Ill.)
On tonight’s game:
I just wanted to be super aggressive on the offensive boards and on the defensive boards. Because when Jabari’s out, it puts much more pressure on me.

On the USA’s different starting five:
It was cool. We all have great chemistry, so it really doesn’t matter who starts. Everybody is so close, there really wasn’t anything different. We had just been getting out to a slow start, so coach wanted to start something different.

What kind of defense was France playing against you?
They tried to switch it up on us. They tried to go zone. They tried to be real physical with us way down low. They tried to put pressure on our guards, but it didn’t really work. We were very effective with what we did.

On the USA’s pressure defense:
That’s something we’ve been working on all the way back in Colorado, with our pressure and keeping teams occupied on defense. That’s something we always work on.