Team USA

Paul and D Williams looked like a pretty good unit together as well.

Agreed on Bosh. He was all over the ball in the 2nd half against China.

 

Kidd has already seen his minutes reduced. Not only is his shooting [barkley]just tarrrrible[/barkley], he old and slow. Sit him.

Bosh looked great to me. Twice the rebounds than Howard in much fewer minutes and was active on defense. Three steals. Ran down every loose ball he could. Got most of his points crashing the boards. He's embraced his role as defender and rebounder, which is great. I didn't see one play run for him, and he still got 9 points just on hustle.

Howard plays like Jane too much IMO, and his power is negated by the wider lane.

 

I heard on espn radio today that there are more people involved in organized basketball in China than the total population of the US.

 

If China could hit a wide open shot they could have kept it close. Horrible shooting.

And once again the US team can't hit from long range.

It looks like their best shooters, Redd and Deron Williams are the last off the bench. Other than them the US team can't hit from long range consistently.

If they run into a hot shooting team that still might be the death of them (although I think they'll win the gold).

 

Remembering how bad China looked in 1992 I'd believe it. They have made VAST strides.

And I'm not sure what Wossa saw, China hit everything they threw up in the first half.

That is one thing I like about international ball though, the shooting is SO MUCH better than what we see in the NBA. Of course, you can also get a clean shot off, so there's a trade-off. Makes me wish the NBA would call fouls on jumpers, I really think our pros have to learn how to shoot when getting hacked. Which means when they get open looks in international play their stroke is off.

 

I heard earlier on NBC that the USA-China basketball game was the most watched basketball game in 117 year history of the sport. Quite impressive.

 

This was China's SuperBowl. This is the game their team was looking forward to more than anything and they had the crowd on their side. They shot like 70% from three in the first half but we are so deep we just wore them down. In 2010 I believe they are getting rid of the trapezoid lane and moving the line back to be like the NBA. That means big time advantage for the USA in future competition. I think Dwight Howard is a beast and I love him at center. Carmelo Anthony is usually our best scorer, and I'm not sure how well he did today but he seemed quiet. Bosh is scrappy and good in olympic competition. Jason Kidd is the Greg Paulus of this team. Coach K likes him for his leadership and wants him to play a lot to be a leader on the court (Which is totally dumb considering you don't really need him to lead with Kobe, LeBron, Dwight Howard, and Carmelo on the court) when there are better players on the bench. Williams looks like the best international point with Paul being second, but those two are so much better than Kidd and the offense just clicks when they are in the game. Wade looks like he's back to his old self. I hope we elbow the crap out of some Angolans on Tuesday

 

Didn't see the first half. In the second half when they got blown away they were missing everything until trash time. They were missing three pointers, layups and everything in between.

 

Kinda like there are more people learning english in China than there are native english speakers. That's kinda scary.

It was pretty neat seeing Yao so emotional and cheering each basket even though his team was down by 30 points.

 

It was nice hearing the old NBA on NBC jingle going into commercial