Team USA beat Montenegro 85-73 in their first Round of 16 game in the FIBA Basketball World Cup at Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, the Philippines, on Friday.

Montenegro became the first serious challenge for the USA thanks to their size advantage, especially from the interior. Their starting big men pair, Marko Simonovic and Nicola Vucevic, are both over 2.11 meters tall. By contrast, though the USA have Jaren Jackson Jr. to match the opponents in size, their starting power forward Josh Hart is only 1.93 meters tall. He is a solid defender and an underestimated rebounder, but he still had to guard a much taller guy in a mismatch.

Hart worked hard to keep Vucevic from powering to the low post, but Montenegro made good use of this advantage of theirs to continuously attack the rim, which, as a result, increased the defensive load on Jackson Jr. The reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year committed two fouls in less than six minutes in the first quarter before heading to the bench.

Neither is Bobby Portis good at containing a strong center with solid offensive skills like Vucevic. Coach Steve Kerr had to send Walker Kessler, who hadn't played much in the previous games, to the court on Friday, but it didn't work as well as the USA wanted.

Montenegro's game strategy was problematic as well. Instead of giving full play to their big men's size advantage in slow half-court offense, they tried to match the USA in speed and made a lot of unreasonable calls when they were trying to launch early offense. That fit exactly 22 turnovers by Montenegro, scoring a massive number of easy points on the fast break.

Anthony Edwards and Austin Reaves were the best-performing players on the USA's side. Having missed all five field goals (FGs) of his in the first half, Edwards bounced back to go 6-for-10 from the floor, making multiple key jumpers in the middle range to drop a team-high 17 points. Reaves only shot two FGs, both from downtown, but went to the free throw line 11 times and got nine points there.

Team USA will play Lithuania in their next game on Sunday while Montenegro face Greece.

Other games on Friday:

Serbia 76-78 Italy

Germany 100-73 Georgia

Spain 69-74 Latvia

Dominican Republic 97-102 Puerto Rico

Slovenia 91-80 Australia

Lithuania 92-67 Greece

Canada 65-69 Brazil