Derrick White participated in the first of two scrimmages between Team USA and Australia and Serbia in Abu Dhabi. He did not play in the lineup that the United States would most likely wear in Paris, as Jayson Tatum replaced Anthony Edwards in the starting lineup. In a game when Team USA raced to a 24-point lead in the third quarter and watched it fall to four points late in the fourth, Jrue Holiday shifted to the bench and White did not participate.
With another outstanding performance from Anthony Davis (17 points and 14 rebounds, including seven on the offensive boards), the US managed to escape, 98-92. He stopped two more shots. Tatum finished with seven points and five assists on three of his four shots. Holiday contributed four assists and five points.
Similar to how the Canadian front line performed early in the first scrimmage, Jock Landale was a threat on the rebounding end against the Americans. Before Tatum found LeBron James for a three-pointer in the corner to start the US scoring, he grabbed his own miss inside for a put-back to start the game. Tatum, who only attempted three shots in the first half, relied once more on passing to influence the national team. Despite Landale making a three and converting all three of his early offensive rebounds into second chance points, he found Edwards for the first of his two early threes, which put the US ahead 12–8.
After Will Magnay, Nick Kay, and Josh Giddey scored baskets to level the score at 19, the US went to Bam Adebayo and Davis in the middle of the court to form its defensive second unit. This group shut out Australia on six of the last seven possessions of the first quarter and went ahead 31–21. After making his initial three-point attempt, Holiday stole the ball from Landale and made a pull-up two in the opposite direction. After failing to score in the first quarter, Tatum opened the second quarter by driving, turning, and kicking to Steph Curry for three points to give the team a 12-point advantage. On his next possession, he caught a pass in the corner and drove for a baseline dunk.A lengthy passing series of plays later, Adebayo, Holiday, Tatum, and Edwards all touched the ball before Tatum grabbed Edwards’ dump-off underneath the rim and dunked once more. Tatum’s first and only three-point effort came from an air ball from the corner after nearly six quarters of Olympic exhibition action. Joel Embiid got off to a rocky start once more, but he turned it around in the second half with a three-point play that posted Giddey and became a hook jumper. The US was ahead at the break, 53–37.
Before Holiday’s pick-and-roll feed to Adebayo extended the US advantage to 20, he found Davis and Devin Booker for buckets inside and outside to start the second half. The Americans were all but doomed when a torrent of turnovers started in the second half. Edwards dropped the ball while in motion after Embiid lost it low. The US threw it over six times in the first six minutes of the third quarter, concluding with eighteen turnovers in forty minutes, but Curry turned it over before Davis did on successive occasions, allowing the Australians to hold the line with a 24-23 victory. Tatum ended with two, Holiday with one.Continuing from that, Australia stormed back in the fourth game to reach as close as four, finishing 31–22. Giddey and Jack McVeigh initiated the inside run. Giddey finished with a three-pointer to bring the score within eight points, and Kay and Mills also made threes. Dyson Daniels extended a 10-0 lead at the half thanks to an Adebayo turnover inside, which prompted a US timeout and a stretch of six consecutive scoreless possessions between the two teams in a six-point contest.
Tyrese Haliburton gave the US a three-pointer and some breathing room, followed by another that essentially averted Australia’s second-half attack. With less than two minutes remaining, Giddey and Landale continued to press, cutting the lead to four points, but Booker’s second-chance mid-range jumper with 30 seconds remaining sealed the deal.