Team USA crushes the African side

In the latest match of the Olympic basketball preliminary game, Team USA easily beat the African side, Angola with a 97-76 on score line. Like the first match again chine, the dream team once more lead by Miami Heat’s guard, Dwyane Wade. With only 16 minutes in the court, Wade has able to produce superb 19 points and lead the team to crush Angola. Dwight Howard also plays well with 14 points when LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony produce 12 points in addition to the easy win for team USA.

The dream team itself does not play too hard to gain the big win. They give their starter a lot of rest. No one from the team USA starter (Jason Kidd, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Dwight Howard) who plays more than 20 minutes. LeBron James is the starter who plays longer with 19 minutes. In this game, coach K gives the team USA’s bench much more minutes play. Jason Kidd, like usual, does not need to make any shoot to help the team to win. Both of the Jason Kidd back up players, Deron Williams and Chris Paul has shown superb play to change the dream team general.

The match again Angola has shown the perfect rotation and the deep bench order in the team USA. Coach K has shown that the dream team can win big without its starter. With previous 101-70 wins again China, Team USA leads the groups with Spain just behind them. It is interesting to see who’s the stronger between the world champions, Spain against team USA, the dream team that has the deep bench order. I can’t wait for that!

Team USA

Just got back from the official team USA redemption convention -official press conference- a madhouse affair that made an NBA champion’s locker room celebration feel like a stroll in the Bejing royal palace gardens!

American media were shocked to see more autograph-seeking amateur photographers than journalists bumper-carring their way around the beautiful conference room to shoulder up to the stars!

I stayed glued to coach K for the hour but was only able to listen in on other more aggressive journalists’ questions.

The coach said all the right, respectful things about China, his team, the opponents and the international officiating, just the complete opposite of Larry Brown four years ago!

His motto is the word respect which he says is as important as a gold medal here.

I am more interested in the tactical and technical aspects and he said the USA still needs work on ball movement, help-side defence, spot shooting and attacking the zone, amen!

He’ll have as many family members as players here(12) for what he calls a once in a lifetime experience in a basketball loving country.

His team is built on speed, talent and defence but I fear that the lack of a fourth true big man might push him to overuse the small-ball lineup(due to D’Antoni’s influence and his roster) which has Lebron and Melo often playing out of position and causes matchup problems on defence and with rebounding when opponents play tall.

This hurt them against Greece in Japan two years ago and the small lineup against Australia produced alot of dribbling and forced one on one type shots which could be costly vs Spain, Argentina, Russia, Lithuania or Greece(again).

I liked his comments on the learning curve for the whole team concerning international ball while still sticking to what he calls universal core values like respect(again), trust, teamwork, sharing and camraderie.

He scares me, however, when he’s says he hasn’t seen Germany or Spain play yet(satellite?youtube?) and that USA basketball chose not to play any first round opponents in warmup games preferring to meet eventual medal round adversaries.

He’s right that the first round prepares his team for the cuthroat, all or nothing medal round games which must remind him of single elimination march madness encounters.

Coach K promised to know the greek players faces, numbers and tendancies but he is still not too sure about their names!

As I watched the players ham it up on stage before the press conference, I couldn’t help but think of the forlorn faces of the players receiving their bronze medals on the podium in Athens in 2004.

Coach K might want to re-evaluate his use of a five containing two natural big men to assure shot blocking and especially offensive rebounding when the shooters go cold.

USA squeaked out the gold in Sydney thanks to offensive rebounding by Garnett and McDyess.

I agree that Yao and Dirk are dignified and faithful faces to represent their countries and these olympic games and I also go along with his hommage to the chinese hosts who are eagerly helpful when we get freaked out by the colossalness of this heavily-populated, spread out, high-rise megalopolis called Bejing!

In fact, if you have a problem not one but TEN chinese people will chime in to help!

I guess they found a way to reduce unemployment!

I can’t wait for the competition to start and I highly recommend your watching the openning ceremony this evening because after all, the chinese invented fireworks!

Woman Olympic Team (Team USA)

It took a while for the United States to get going but once Diana Taurasi and Tina Thompson sparked the team into life, there was no stopping the Americans.

Taurasi finished with 17 points and Thompson seven as the USA rolled to a 97-57 victory in Group B in front of United States President George W Bush who watched from the stands.

Trailing 13-2 nearly five minutes into the game, Thompson and Taurasi combined to score all the points in an 8-0 run.

The Czechs were still on top at 17-12 following a Michala Hartigova basket when the US hit the Europeans with another surge that put them in command.

Lisa Leslie scored, followed by a Kara Lawson three-pointer and a jumper from Candace Parker to tie the contest.

Tamika Catchings continued the surge with a jumper to make it 19-17.

The three-time defending Olympic champions stayed in front the rest of the way.

By half-time, the US had a 49-31 stranglehold on proceedings and they pulled away in the second half.

“Defense was the key to our win tonight,” Parker said to FIBA.com.

“We forced the Czech Republic into 27 turnovers and we took full advantage.”

The US scored 12 points off those turnovers.

“We were cautious at the start because this was our opening game of the Olympics but then we picked up our game and now we look forward to taking on hosts China,” Parker said.

The USA finished 32 of 54 (59%) inside the arc compared to 14 of 40 (35%) for the Czechs.

Anne Donovan’s team also out-rebounded the Czechs 41-31.

Sylvia Fowles finished with 16 points and 14 rebounds while Leslie had 10 boards to go with her four points.

Jason Kidd the Leader

In Beijing, Team USA faces a very competitive field including Spain, Argentina and Lithuania. With the announcement of the American squad, there were a few changes to the line-up from last year.

Jerry Colangelo and the coaching staff added past Olympians Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer to last year’s team. But there are a few questions which remain.

Is D-Wade healthy enough again? Is Chris Paul big enough to play against the much bigger European guards? All of that is secondary because Team USA has the ultimate weapon. Jason Kidd. J-Kidd. Mr. Kidd, the twice named Dallas Maverick who, although he did not bring a ring for Cuba this year, will bring a gold medal back to Dallas despite Mark Cuban’s protestations about NBA players and the Olympics.

Kidd is the ultimate Olympic basketball player. A truly gifted passer who makes everyone on the team, and I do make an emphasis on TEAM,  better.  Although he does not have any NBA rings, Kidd is a perfect 44-0 in international games and was a gold medalist in 2000 at Sydney.

The triple-double machine plain and simply makes Kobe better (the best player in the world better?) and watch out for the montrous dunks Lebron will lay upon the opponents.

With that said, Boozer and Bosh will bring the toughness and size needed to handle the boards along with Superman’s cape, Dwight Howard.

My main reservation is the number of point guards Team USA have. Do they need three PG’s? Granted, Chris Paul showed everyone how good a playmaker he was this year but at the Worlds he was, well, quite ordinary.

In any event, pencil in Team USA for at least a medal, and most lilkely gold. But just like last year, I am holding the eraser ready if the Greeks make it out of the qualifying round and meet up with Team USA. Watch out for the Pick and Roll.