Posts under ‘Team USA’

This morning’s 92-69 thrashing of Greece was the product of another suffocating effort by Kobe, LeBron, and Company on the defensive end. What differentiates the 2008 Team USA hoopsters from the group that lost to Greece in the 2006 World Championships is the commitment to play NBA playoff-style D each and every game. Thus far, that’s been more than enough to compensate for any lack of nuance when it comes to FIBA rules, and a poor performance from beyond the arc.

Sometimes timing really is everything.
On Sunday night, I watched the second half of Team USA’s 90-68 spanking of Russia and left that game completely unconvinced that this was a team that has a lock on the Gold. A major reason why was that I disliked the way we handled Russia’s zone D, [...]

Thanks to the collective hoops IQ that guys like J-Kidd, Kobe, LeBron, and Michael Redd bring, the defense has been a lot better too. It certainly seems like the days when teams could just backdoor and pick-and-roll the US to death are gone.

All that being said, anybody who thinks it’s a rap, and the US is definitely taking home the hoops gold, needs to chill out because it ain’t.