PARIS — Look, perspective might be necessary here. Far worse things have happened to people at the Place de la Concorde than losing a basketball game.
Nonetheless, both the U.S. men’s and women’s 3×3 basketball teams have put themselves in a big hole 48 hours into Olympic competition, each falling for the second time in two days.
Wednesday, the American women, the defending gold medalists from 2021, fell 20-17 to Azerbaijan, a nation playing 3×3 for the first time in the Summer Games. The Azerbaijanis were not your typical first-time squad, though; their star is Tiffany Hayes, the Las Vegas Aces guard and two-time national champion at UConn, who became a naturalized Azerbaijan citizen in 2015. Hayes scored the game-winning basket with six seconds left, as a miscommunication on defense by the U.S. team gave her an uncontested layup to put Azerbaijan up by a point.
U.S. guard Hailey van Lith tried a 2-point shot on the Americans’ next possession, but it was an air ball, and the Azerbaijanis put the game away at the foul line.
An hour later, the U.S. men fell 19-17 to Poland, which didn’t have any ringers on its team but made several key 2-pointers. In the half-court 3×3 game, shots outside the line count for two points, not three, and shots inside the line count for…
