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    NBA-led Team USA falls to Australia, suffers first loss since 2006

    It was only an exhibition but the United States went down in Australia.
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    USA Basketball has been a juggernaut for more than two decades, with teams featuring NBA players dominating in international competition. There was a well-documented hiccup that saw the United States fall shorts of gold medals at the 2004 Olympics and the 2006 World Championships but, since then, the men's national team hasn't lost a single time when led by its top-tier players from the NBA. 

    That changed this weekend, however, with the group suffering a 98-94 loss to Australia in exhibition action. On the positive side, the game took place prior to the FIBA World Cup, set to begin on Aug. 31, but the American team blew a 10-point lead in the second half and saw its winning streak snapped at a mesmerizing 78 games. 

    "Some of it is expected with a new group that's trying to learn about each other and learn a system,'' Team USA and San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said after the game. "So it's not surprising. But the Aussies gave us a great lesson as far as where we want to be and how you have to play in this kind of a competition.''

    The last loss for the United States happened in the semifinals of the World Championships in 2006 and, since then, the Americans have won gold at the 2007 FIBA Americas, 2008 Olympics, 2010 World Cup, 2012 Olympics, 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. While the team features significant talent, most of the elite-level players from the NBA chose not to participate, with a well-chronicled exodus in the weeks leading up to full-fledged training for the 2019 FIBA World Cup. 

    In this setting, Team USA allowed 30 points to Spurs point guard Patty Mills, leading Australia to the win, and it wasn't the first time during this cycle that the team clad in red, white and blue didn't appear fully dominant. Kemba Walker and Harrison Barnes led the way for the Americans with 22 and 20 points, respectively, but no other member of the squad scored more than 12 and Australia shot 50 percent from the floor to secure the upset. 

    Team USA still enters the FIBA World Cup as a substantial betting favorite but, for the first time in decades, they will arrive without the best player in the tournament, as Greece's Giannis Antetokounmpo and Serbia's Nikola Jokic have more established pedigrees than anyone operating for the Americans. Popovich still has work to do, including one player cut, before the team moves to China for the marquee festivities but there was a real bump in the road in Melbourne and it ended with a loss. 

    Brad Rowland

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