Team USA

Yeah, that's definitely fair. The US had a couple of times where they really could have blown the game open and failed to take advantage of it. They also had some moments where you started to remember the Greece game four years ago where people went too much by themselves and took bad shots. Kobe actually made a couple of bad shots, I thought, although so did Rudy Fernandez (that three from about 25 with a hand in his face lol.)

For the most part though I was happy with our effort, and the way Spain played today, if we hadn't given it our all, we'd be talking about a loss and a silver medal tonight.

edit: I really feel this is the first game in the modern basketball era (pros at the Olympics) where the US played an A game with an A team and another country stayed right with us. That's impressive to me, hats off to Spain. In other games where the US lost internationally I really felt like they played bad basketball or had the wrong players, or both. If we had lost this game today, there would be no excuses to be had. We couldn't give that much better an effort, but neither could Spain. Great game.

edit2: Without Dwyane Wade the US would have been in trouble in the first half. I know Miami fans are licking their lips at the return of Flash.

 

I understood what you were saying, what I was saying was that it was not really offensive problems that kept Spain coming back. There were some bad shots, but very few compared to a typical game.

The problem clearly was on the defensive end, where they were unable to stop guard penetration and the pick and roll. (edit. I know I'm agruing a small point here. Yeah, some stops and we could have finished this team earlier)

On that subject, I was begining to wonder if the refs knew that moving screens were illegal. They weren't calling it. The refs were not biased, because the screwy calls went both ways, but they make NBA refs look competent.

>>I really feel this is the first game in the modern basketball era (pros at the Olympics) where the US played an A game with an A team and another country stayed right with us. That's impressive to me, hats off to Spain.

Absolutely. They can hold their head up high. This was probably the very best team we could possibly put together IMO, and they played nothing if not hard, and Spain had the ball and were down 2 late in the fourth. We could have easily lost if not for the clutch play of Kobe and Wade.

This team, along with the Celtics big three winning a title, has me yearning for the return of multiple star teams. How cool would Lebron and Wade be on the same team. Before the NBA went all expansion, that was common.

 

lol

 

not sure if this is true or not and i'm too lazy to look it up, but an old roomate of mine and myself were talking and he said that moving screens aren't illegal in the fiba rulebook.

collin do you know?

 

Last Olympics with the trapezoid lane and they are moving the three point line back albeit not as far back as the NBA line. Thank God they are changing those international rules

 

Did ya'll know the coaches of Olympic teams don't actually get medals? Hence, the picture of K. It was a gesture from the players.

 

I thought this year the US was giving coaches a medal as well?

 

They were thinking Colangelo might come up with some sort of token for the coaches, but they covered the fact that coaches don't get medals at all.

I'm glad to see Colangelo stay on until London, it should help establish some continuity for USA Basketball. I would like to see K stay on as well, but I guess we'll see. Seeing those pros play man to man reminded me of what Duke used to look like when they could get athletes. Hopefully the exposure was good for the program.

 

It'll be interesting to see how the whole Olympics thing hindered/help Coach K and recruiting and if he'll want to continue to coach in the Olympics due to the impact on getting ready for the Duke season.

 

Pretty sure K has already said he is done