LONDON — A movie will probably be made about South Sudan's basketball team one day. And the players representing the young, war-torn nation provided a powerful and dramatic scene Saturday night in a moment the raucous crowd at the O2 Arena won't soon forget.
LeBron James scored a layup with eight seconds left to prevent what would have been a historic upset and Team USA escaped with a 101-100 victory.
Former Charlotte Hornets forward JT Thor had scored a three-pointer with 20 seconds left and South Sudan had three attempts in the final seconds but could not convert the miracle.
The club is called the Bright Stars, the first team to represent the country at the Olympics when it arrives in Paris next week, and it gave Team USA a serious and exciting test.
“I didn't do a great job preparing our team, I don't think we focused enough on what they're capable of doing and that's on me,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr said.
“They played a wonderful game and the ending was good for us, just because of the feeling. To feel what it will be like in Paris and Lille… it's a good reminder that when we play against teams, it's the most important game of their lives and we have to expect everyone to play like that.”
South Sudan led by as many as 16 points and threatened to pull off one of the biggest upsets ever seen in international basketball before Team USA pulled it off.
James may have been interested in buying the film rights to the South Sudanese story, but he was determined not to appear on the losing team. James was fierce in denying the surprise win attempt, aggressively taking control of the game when the United States was in serious trouble.
He scored 25 points and made a series of tremendous plays in a 23-5 run from late in the third quarter to early in the fourth. A powerful dunk that led to a three-point play and a 3-pointer were crucial.
“You can't take credit away from South Sudan,” James said. “They played some really good basketball and that's why the game is won between the lines and not just on paper.”
James looked nervous when Kerr decided not to start him or the other starters in the game in the third quarter. Kerr had done this before during these Olympic warm-up games, but he also wanted to change the tone after Team USA's defense denied dribble penetration that led to 57 percent shooting and a 3-point spree by the Bright Stars in the first half.
“I think the whole team was embarrassed at halftime that they were completely outplayed and down 14 points,” Kerr said. “And I don't think that [James] “I was really excited about not starting him in the third quarter, but I thought the next group we put in there did a good job defensively. I looked down a couple times and I can see LeBron eager to get out there as soon as he came out and got to work, so he was brilliant.”
Steph Curry hit two clutch 3-pointers, helping end a stretch in which Team USA missed 14 of 15 3-pointers that contributed to the deficit. And he said he and his teammates learned some lessons as they improved to 4-0 in exhibition games this summer.
“They can beat us if we don't play our style of basketball, and our style of basketball is to play defense,” said Curry, who scored 12 points. “We didn't make them uncomfortable at all in the first half and they took advantage of that. But we also learned that we have that equipment if we can find it, no matter who's on the floor, we can overwhelm teams for 40 minutes and it's a great reminder of both of those things.”
Anthony Davis, who had another big game for Team USA in what has been a tour de force over the past three weeks, made a series of plays to cap a 15-point, 10-rebound performance and seal the game.
South Sudan demonstrated its tremendous collective athleticism and fearlessness against an American team that many South Sudanese players consider their equals. Most of the players are descendants of refugees and grew up in North America or Australia.
They are not so much Cinderellas as outcasts, some of whom could receive calls from NBA teams in the coming days.
Point guard Carlik Jones was voted the 2022-23 G League Player of the Year while under contract with the Chicago Bulls, but was released last year as a luxury tax-saving measure despite being one of the top point guards at the World Cup in Manila. Last season, he played for the Zhejiang Golden Bulls in China.
All he did was post a triple-double with 15 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, but he missed a jumper with four seconds left; the rebound set off a chaotic scramble for the ball around the rim, where the referees decided not to call contact and the United States escaped.
Marial Shayok, a 6-foot-4 guard who grew up in Ottawa, Canada, was selected in the second round of the 2019 draft by the Philadelphia 76ers out of Iowa State and played in just four career games before being released. He has played several years in Turkey and averaged 19 points last season with Shandong in China.
He was the best player on the court at several points during the game, scoring 24 points and hitting 6 of 12 three-pointers.
Thor, a 6-foot-10 power forward who starred at Auburn, played in 165 games for the Hornets over the past three years after being selected in the second round of the 2021 draft. The Hornets declined his option last month after he averaged 3.2 points and 2.3 rebounds in 63 games last season.
Thor scored 14 points coming off the bench.
Wenyan Gabriel had all kinds of former teammates on Team USA. He played at Kentucky with Bam Adebayo, with Davis and James with the Los Angeles Lakers and briefly with Kevin Durant with the Brooklyn Nets. Gabriel has played 150 games with seven NBA teams, but only five last season while on a 10-day contract with the Memphis Grizzlies.
He added 11 points and exerted constant pressure on the American interior defense.
Khaman Maluach, a 7-foot-1 athlete with huge potential, is the highest-profile player of the group. The 18-year-old will play at Duke next year. Super-agent Rich Paul was in London not only to see his clients James and Davis, but Maluach as well.
He had seven points and three rebounds.
“We want to regain the momentum, the mentality, the tenacity that we had [to the Olympics]”We're unfazed,” said South Sudanese coach Royal Ivey, who is an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets.
Joel Embiid, who was born and raised in the West African nation of Cameroon before moving to the U.S. at age 16, played his best game for Team USA, with 14 points and seven rebounds.
In 2021, Team USA lost to Nigeria, Africa's representative at the Tokyo Olympics, in an exhibition match in Las Vegas. It has lost nine times to seven different nations, three of them in exhibition matches, since 2019.
Team USA avoided another loss, one that would have brought a level of embarrassment to a national program that has existed for only a handful of years after Luol Deng, the former NBA All-Star from South Sudan, raised the funds and the players through tireless work.
“There's a tendency to get disappointed sometimes; I think the fact that we played well against Serbia the other night, it was a natural disappointment game that you fear,” Kerr said. “What we've learned with USA basketball is that the gap has closed… so it's not a surprise to see a South Sudanese team play really well and make threes. The game has gotten better all over the world, but we still feel like we always control the outcome with our performance and as good as all the other teams are now, we still feel like it's up to us to determine the outcome based on our defense and our effort.”
