USA claimed a valuable victory of 69-53 over Greece in their first game in the second round in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in the south Chinese city Shenzhen on Saturday. Thanks to the victory, USA joined Australia and France in the quarterfinals.

Compared with USA, who began with their regular starting-lineup, Greece made changes first – though not in their franchise – by launching their offense around Giannis Antetokounmpo in the first quarter. The Greek Freak responded to the team's trust by getting eight points, including burying two 3-pointers. In defense, Greece put up zone defense, which worked for Turkey in the game against USA.

However, having played three games together, USA's NBA stars have apparently grown to know each other better and made their response way faster than Greece had expected. In defense, they first launched zone defense, too on Giannis Antetokounmpo and then sent Marcus Smart to take on him. The latter worked surprisingly well. Smart, who though is almost 20 centimeters shorter than often sat on Antetokounmpo's knees as part of his defense so the Greek Freak could not jump.

In offense, USA kept a centerless small-ball squad in most time to cope with Greece's zone defense and it turned out to be a good solution. With five players who can handle the ball on the court, USA kept assaulting and changing the opponent's defense with penetration until a loophole was found. Greece, on the other hand, do not share USA's strong bodies and incredible athleticism and thus would always fail to cover defense in time after several rounds of breaking.

Of course keeping a small unit on the court also had limitations – rim and rebound protecting, for example. USA's solution to that was to close in so they had more people in the paint, which could also double team Antetokounmpo. The defect of doing so was they would leave many open 3-pointers for Greece. Though the Greek Freak noticed that and kept finding open teammates outside, the team's disappointing 3-point rate only encouraged USA to continue their strategy.

Greece put Antetokounmpo in the center position in the third quarter, aiming to maintain both speed and size. However, this move only worked in the first three possessions before USA again sent their small-ball squad. The reason was simple, Greek players are taller but American players are stronger, faster, not to mention have way better leaping ability.

Meanwhile, Greece underwent conflict in their offense. Most of the team's players were used to the game of involving everybody but that was not the game Antetokounmpo played in the NBA. As a result, Greece kept swinging from team basketball and super star basketball, which cost their continuity in offense while USA took the opportunity to expand their lead to 20 points in the fourth quarter.

The irony, which made Greece's problem even worse, was that when Antetokounmpo sat on the bench, Greece actually found their offense smoother and able to narrow down the score difference. Nonetheless, without a guy who needed at least three to defend, Greece had a new problem: they could score but did not have the one who was able to drop the "big points."

In the end, Greece had to accept the loss and the team needed to figure out how to integrate Antetokounmpo with the team's offensive system.

Other games on Saturday:

New Zealand 111-81 Japan

Australia 82-76 Dominican Republic

Canada 126-71 Jordan

Brazil 71-93 Czech Republic

Turkey 79-74 Montenegro

France 78-75 Lithuania

Germany 89-78 Senegal