Watch: Team USA narrowly avoids shocking upset to South Sudan

The United States men's basketball team played a pre-Olympics showcase game on Saturday in London and narrowly avoided what would have been a stunning upset against South Sudan.

The good news for Team USA is that it did end up winning, 101-100, thanks to a late shot from LeBron James and a close call on the defensive side of the ball in the closing seconds.

The bad news is that it was not an especially impressive showing, especially as they trailed for most of the game against a team they were favored to beat by 43.5 points.

Here is the sequence at the end of the game that resulted in the win.

It's not exactly what you expect from a 43.5-point favorite.

There are certainly going to be some strong takes and opinions about that showing, and it should be at least something of a concern as the Olympics approach. Let's face it, a team full of NBA All-Stars should not need that sort of sequence at the end to win that game.

Even with that being true, this was not a game that actually counted for anything. It was a tune-up game and a showcase game where they probably did not have the same focus, intensity and game-planning that they would for an actual Olympics game. At least that is what the U.S. should be telling itself after coming that close to what would have been a gigantic upset.