Team USA’s narrow win against Italy in the second group stage game was the reality check they needed. That is exactly what coach Kara Lawson delivered in the locker room afterward. Team USA has since won their next two games against Czechia and Hungary in convincingly dominant fashion. Speaking on that locker room message, Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier revealed how it landed.

As ESPN’s Alexa Philippou shared, she made it clear that the team received it in exactly the spirit it was delivered. 

“I think the team received it really well because we felt it too. We know that we didn’t give our best. We didn’t obviously play our best. And we could have done a lot better. And she’s absolutely right. We’re playing for our country right now, and it’s inexcusable the way that we came out in that game. And so I think the team took it as a challenge, like, she’s right.”

Collier acknowledged that, even though Team USA ultimately got the 55-52 win against Italy, the performance was far from acceptable by any measure. The 55-point total was the team’s lowest scoring output in 42 years, their lowest-scoring World Cup game since 1971. The game also saw them shoot a difficult 29 percent from the field. They also shot just 8 percent from three-point range, making only a single 3-pointer the entire night.

They even trailed in the fourth quarter before grinding their way to the result. And understandably, Kara Lawson’s response in the locker room was not one of quiet relief at escaping with the win. As seen in video clips of her address to the team, it was direct and unsparing. 

“Let this be the last time that a team plays with more passion than us throughout the course of the game. Let this be the last time that all 12 don’t show up to compete at a high level.”

“And let this be the last time that we lack a resilient mindset because we’re so upset that we’re not scoring the way we’re normally scoring. Your contribution has to be your passion, your energy, your intensity that you play with.”

In their next game against Czechia ended in a commanding 105-64 win, with every member of the roster scoring. The quarterfinal against Hungary also ended 108-56, again, with everyone on the team contributing on the scoreboard. As Collier had said of the Italy performance, “I don’t think we’re going to have that problem again.” It appears Team USA is taking her at her word.

Collier herself has perhaps been the most visible embodiment of the team’s collective response. The next game after that Italy game saw her deliver her highest-scoring performance yet against Czechia, scoring 12 points. In the quarterfinal game against Hungary, she finished with a game-high 19 points, alongside seven rebounds and a block.

In fact, the trajectory of her performances across the tournament has been exactly what a team building toward a championship needs from its veteran cornerstone. That level of output and intensity will be important again now as Team USA prepares to face Spain in the semifinal.

No. 6 Spain is the strongest opponent they have faced in the tournament so far. However, if Napheesa Collier’s response to Kara Lawson’s wake-up call is anything to go by, and if the performances against Czechia and Hungary are any indication, the kind of flat, passionless showing that nearly cost them against Italy may well already be a thing of the past.