The 1992 USA Team that dominated the Barcelona Olympics it was not. Long gone are the days where our international competition takes their 40+ point whupping and asks for autographs when the game is over. Instead, last Saturday and Sunday saw Team USA struggle before winning 2 exhibition games in the run up to this year's 2010 FIBA World Championship. This version of Team USA is missing some serious star power from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. If you scan the roster you will not see some of the NBA's biggest names that played so well in Beijing like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, or Dwight Howard. In a youth-movement of sorts (I know Chauncey Billups is on this team and he started balling with Father Time), the "Darantula", Kevin Durant headlines a group of rising NBA superstars in Madrid.
I'm not even going to talk about the first game against Lithuania. We'll get the cliff notes version from Rasheed Wallace . Ok, so maybe that didn't really fill you in as to what took place, but this game was so dismal that you're gonna thank me when you read these condensed bullet points
- Team USA opens up the first half shooting 3 for 26 and an anemic 7 point first quarter
- Halftime score: Lithuania 29, USA 26. I would have rather stapled my hand to a wall than watch this first half...
- Rudy Gay knocks down four free throws after a flagrant foul in the 3rd quarter and turns a 1 point 50-49 lead into a 5 point cushion
- Team USA wakes up and realizes that they're playing LITHUANIA(!!!!), hitting the cruise control en route to a 77-61 win.
The second game against Spain may reveal the character of this USA team going forward. After building a comfortable 69-58 lead after 3 quarters against the Spaniards, Team USA started to slack and let in the 4th quarter and let Spain back into the game. The hometown team took its first lead of the game (82-80) with an 8-0 run that was fueled by plain awful shot-selection and carelessness from American players (I'm talking about your air-balled 3 Lamar Odom...)
The last 30 seconds of the game were spectacular (USA-Spain Recap)
The last 30 seconds of the game were spectacular (USA-Spain Recap)
Kevin Durant, the aforementioned "Darantula" used his obscene 7' 6" wingspan to deny Ricky Rubio (roll those rs) and Rudy Fernandez pm consecutive 3-point attempts with less than 7 seconds to go. This win demonstrated some real grit for the Americans and could be a harbinger of their FIBA play once the games start to count this Saturday. We'll probably see them take leads and then let teams back into the game with poor offensive continuity and bone-headed decisions. Hopefully, they'll continue to walk away on the right side of hotly contested games.
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