Team USA’s biggest advantage in Olympic win over Japan: They have A’ja and Stewie

VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France – As Team USA and Japan took the floor, the most obvious thing was the most obvious thing – Team USA’s significant height advantage was potentially overwhelming. While Japan didn’t have a starter over 6 feet tall, the five Team USA starters averaged 6-foot-2. And when that felt suffocating enough, just remember that 6-foot-9 Brittney Griner comes off the bench.

But every coach worth their mettle will tell you the great equalizer in basketball is the 3-point shot. It can make up for a lot. Even 6 inches. And on Monday night, that’s exactly what Japan did. It hit 3-point shot after 3-point shot to hang with the Americans through the first 20 minutes.

From the bench, Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve looked remarkably relaxed for a coach leading a team with a 55-game win streak. But Reeve will be the first to say that neither she nor her team have been a part of that streak, so they’re only focused on their six games in France. They want to go 6-0. If and when that adds up to a 61-game win streak, great. But until then? Don’t talk about it.

So, forget about the fact that the Americans held a 16-rebound advantage at the half or that they were shooting 55 percent inside the arc. The great equalizer had allowed Japan to keep it to an 11-point game.

But Reeve, at the half, told her team to settle in. It was about growing through each of the six games. Grow through the physicality that’s more obvious (and sometimes, less called than in the WNBA) in FIBA basketball. Grow through the miscues and miscommunications. Grow through the next 20 minutes. And, sticking to the plan worked as Team USA picked up its first win in group play, 102-76 over Japan.

“This tournament is all about getting better. You’re not going to peak too early. We never have,” Diana Taurasi said. “We’re going to keep getting better and keep getting used to what we want to do, and I think we saw that today.”

Ultimately, it didn’t matter that Team USA’s 3-point attempts didn’t fall (the team shot 4 of 20 on the night) or that perhaps it took too long for the Americans to adjust their defensive scheme to one better equipped to stop Japan. Because when the going got tough, Reeve turned to another particularly significant advantage she has on her roster – the two best players in the world in A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart.

The duo combined for 46 points, 21 rebounds, seven assists and seven blocks. They played with and off one another so well that one might think that they played together year-round, but that’s not the case. Usually, the two are posing epic battles when the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces go head-to-head.

To have them both on the same roster is truly the biggest advantage for Team USA. And Monday night showed it. A team can shoot the lights out from range, but Team USA has A’ja and Stewie. Team USA can go ice-cold from deep, but then they have A’ja and Stewie (who helped lead the Americans to 64 points in the paint). The team can miscommunicate and have moments of nerve, but ultimately, A’ja and Stewie never looked rattled or shaken.

“When those two play like they did, it’s hard on defenses,” Reeve said, in the biggest understatement of the Olympics so far.

Point guard Chelsea Gray, who plays with Wilson on the Aces, said it’s a particularly joyful experience to be the floor general tasked with getting the ball to the two top players in the world.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “And it’s pretty cool for a change to pass to Stewie, instead of her deflecting the damn thing.”

With Wilson and Stewart being Wilson and Stewart, Team USA finally settled in around that pair and began to look increasingly more like the Team USA the past seven Olympics have come to know.

By Monday night, as the team headed back to Paris on the train, they were – in fact – 1-0. The record books will show that Team USA’s streak has been extended to 56 consecutive wins, but the 1-0 is all Reeve and her 12 care about. In 40 minutes on Monday night, they improved throughout the game, and though they won’t see a team the rest of the Olympics that plays quite the same as Japan, Team USA was better on Monday night than it was on Monday morning, and that’s what matters to Reeve.

On Thursday, Team USA will face Belgium, a team that produced a significant home-court advantage Monday against Germany – the arena is about 20 minutes from the Belgian border – but still lost. As they did against Japan, Team USA will have significant advantages heading into that game and there will be pieces (like the crowd noise) that they won’t be able to control because those scales might just tilt in Belgium’s favor.

But as Team USA looks at the next five games , they can rest assured that they have an advantage that no other team does: A’ja and Stewie.

And yes, that’s pretty hard on other teams and perhaps, there is truly no great equalizer when it comes to those two.