Team USA 110, Nigeria 66: Takeaways from USA's exhibition tour

A perfect and expected 5-0 record in its stateside exhibition tour leading up to the Olympics leaves us with these thoughts on Team USA heading into Rio

USA Basketball completed its exhibition tour of the United States with a 5-0 record following a 110-66 victory against the Nigerian National Team. The latest competition in Houston was a perfect ending to an expected sweep of its friendly games, and one that got Team USA back on track following their ugly, yet still dominant, victory against Venezuela in Chicago.

The NBA players in red, white and blue knocked down six 3-pointers in the first half, eclipsing their four makes in their entire game against Venezuela, and finished with 13 made 3-pointers overall. This left them shooting only 33.9 percent (56 for 165) from deep during the exhibition tour.

With Team USA now headed to Rio for the 2016 Olympics and another gold medal, here are five takeaways from their victory against Nigeria and the exhibition tour, overall.

The 3-point shooting might be a problem, if we're picking nits

We're just going off these five exhibition games, but USA Basketball shot really poorly from downtown. Maybe it was the shorter 3-point line that Team USA isn't quite used to yet or maybe this team just doesn't have the shooters the 2012 Olympic team had, but 3-point shooting gives the U.S. that extra advantage in overwhelming their opponents. It didn't matter in the exhibition tour and it still might not matter in the Olympic games themselves. USA still dominated its competition.

However, looking at how Team USA shot the ball in 2012 in London, its 44 percent success rate dwarfs the mere 33.9 percent they shot during this stateside tour. Sometimes, it looked like the closer line was messing with Klay Thompson's shot. He looked much more comfortable shooting a couple feet behind the shorter 3-point arc than right up against the line. Carmelo Anthony is typically a monster shooting the closer 3-pointer (50 percent in 2012) but he went only 10 for 32 in this tour.

Again, this might just be hand-wringing over five meaningless games but the U.S. should shoot better than this.

Forcing turnovers might make up for potentially weak 3-point shooting

Let's say the shooting isn't all it's cracked up to be and Team USA underperforms from beyond the arc. They'll still be the most athletic team in the tournament and should be able to get by against most teams by forcing turnovers. Through their five exhibition games, they forced 108 turnovers. It was legitimately shocking when they didn't force an opponent into 20 or more turnovers in the second game against China (18) and the ugly contest against Venezuela (19). Against Nigeria, they pushed it to 22 turnovers to help create that breathing room, which suffocates the opposition.

That's the beauty of having guys like Kevin Durant, DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and Paul George on the perimeter. They can shoot the gaps on passing lanes. Thompson can pick the pocket of just about anybody and even Kyrie Irving is an overwhelming defender when he wants to be. Plus, big men Draymond Green, DeMarcus Cousins and DeAndre Jordan are superb at forcing mistakes.

There's no reason to think they can't push the turnovers to around 25 per game during the Olympics. Some competition might even end up in the 30s, depending on how much Mike Krzyzewski has them take their foot off the pedal in some potential blowouts. If you make a mistake, they run it down your throat for an easy score in transition.

How do you stop these two if you're going against Team USA? USATSI

The luxury of having Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant: Nobody has an answer for them

What separates USA Basketball from the rest of the world (when the program truly cares about being the best it can be) is its speed, versatility and incredible overall skill. Some countries will have good point guard play but won't have the wings to run with them and finish. Other teams will have the weapons on the wings but won't have the point guards to maximize their scoring opportunities. The U.S. obviously has the luxury and advantage of this never being a problem, even when it has to dip deeper into its pool of players because some of the brightest stars decided to sit out the Rio extravaganza.

Part of that speed-versatility-skill triumvirate is shown in Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant just being utterly unfair at the international level. Most nights, especially for KD, they're unfair in the greatest league in the world. Now give them even more of an advantage with lesser competition and they score in waves you can't handle. It's one thing to have one of these guys. USA has two of them (and that's not even counting what Paul George will probably do when he's on the court) and they can play them at the same time.

Durant had 14 points on seven field-goal attempts in 22 minutes against Nigeria. That pushed his total to 64 points on 36 shots in 78 minutes for the five exhibition games. Carmelo Anthony, despite shooting poorly from 3-point range, scored 19 points in 19 minutes against Nigeria. His total in five games ended up being 68 points on 56 shots in 95 minutes, and the scary thing is he didn't even play that well during the tour.

This Nigerian team is much better than what we saw back in 2012

Back in 2012, Nigeria qualified for their first Olympic games in basketball. They even got their first Olympic victory by beating Tunisia. It was a big moment for the country's basketball program, which actually now sports quite a bit of pro talent. But they weren't ready for their group-play showdown with Team USA, and with the way the U.S. was hitting shots, I'm not sure anybody could have handled it that day. The Americans ended up beating Nigeria 156-73. That's right; they beat Nigeria by 83 points. It was both embarrassing and yet almost a rite of passage for a blossoming basketball program on the world stage.

Nigeria had made the 2012 Olympics through one of the final qualifying tournaments. This year, it qualified for the Olympics earlier by winning the 2015 AfroBasket tournament. It was a sign of progress. While Nigeria lost Monday by a considerable margin (44 points), we at least saw a much better showing in this exhibition than we saw in 2012.

Granted, USA Basketball is missing some key names like LeBron James, Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, but Nigeria is also missing Al-Farouq Aminu and Festus Ezeli. Those names aren't on par with the U.S. absentee list in terms of talent and their status in the NBA, but those are significant losses for the Nigerian program. To at least come out and put up a fight the way they did shows some pretty impressive progress. And that's with them going 4 for 29 from 3-point range, which was helped only by some late makes by Chamberlain "Champ" Oguchi in this game.

He didn't try a 360 but DeMar DeRozan is fun when he dunks

There were a couple of dunks in this game by DeMar DeRozan that didn't almost Y2K the Internet but it still got people excited about his dunks in a USA Basketball uniform. The Toronto Raptors All-Star delivered a one-handed hammer from the baseline that made Kevin Durant drop his head back and scream.

Then there was one to punctuate the game on a lob from Kyle Lowry in transition. Lowry came down the left side of the floor, spotted his teammate from the North flying down the right side of the floor, and threw the lob up for him to finish. DeRozan made that one nasty, too.

The Olympics should be pretty fun for Team USA. Just not too much fun.

USA Basketball begins its Olympic march on Saturday, Aug. 6 when it plays China at 6 p.m. ET.