USA vs Japan Prediction & Betting Tips - Basketball World Cup

Prediction published on 04/09/2019, 07:14  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 04/09/2019 at 08:14 in Basketball World Cup Predictions

The United States of America are trying to win this FIBA World Basketball Cup for the third time in a row. They haven't got all their top NBA players and that showed in their second group game against Turkey. The USA had won their opening group fixture 88-67 but found Turkey much more of a threat. The Americans got off to a good start and were five points clear at half time. The second half proved to be a lot tougher though losing both the third and fourth quarters to find themselves level and overtime required which they won by a single point. It was so nearly a defeat though as the Turks led by a point with just nine seconds of overtime remaining. They missed four free throws that if scored would have condemned the Americans to a defeat. The USA now need to win this final game against Japan to win the group.

Japan are bottom of the group and will be in the 17th to 32nd classification part of the second stage. They are ranked 48th in the world and have never finished higher than 20th in the FIBA Basketball World Cup. They began this group with an 86-67 loss to Turkey. Any hopes of qualifying in the top two came to an end when they lost out 89-76 to the Czech Republic. They got off to a decent start in that second game with the scores level after the first quarter. The last three quarters were all lost though and the tip for this game is a win for the USA, go for them to win on a -24.5 handicap.