Well, you can’t win ’em all by 83. And when your one and only experienced center plays just 8 minutes, there is a problem in both rebounding and protecting the rim. Those are two of the lessons learned Saturday by Team USA in their narrow victory over Lithuania. Next up is Argentina, which is a better and more experienced team. For a take on the game from a Lithuanian-American tavern in Queens, give a read to today’s Diary of The Uncredentialed. //
QUEENS, New York — The first thing that must be said about Team USA’s surprisingly close victory over Lithuania was how strongly LeBron James played over the final 5 minutes of the game, when the Americans turned a two-point deficit into a five-point victory. LeBron had never had a finishing kick like that in a FIBA game. Never. It was always someone else doing the heavy lifting in those rare instances when the Americans were in peril, with one case in point
// Mike Krzyzewski has won 927 college basketball games, made 11 Final Fours, won four NCAA Championships and earned an Olympic gold medal since landing his first head coaching gig at Army in 1975. In those 37 years, he’d never sat courtside for anything this ludicrous. “Well, obviously, we just shot better than any team in a game that I have ever coached,” Kryzewski said after Team USA’s 156-73 dismantling of Nigeria. When the buzzer sounded, finally and mercifully, Team USA had
Nominations for photo of the day are hereby declared closed. The winner is the picture below. It comes from the Facebook page of IAMAGM.com, which is a great site. These are the suits the Americans will wear when they march in the opening ceremony tonight. Apparently, we have chosen a cross between British schoolboy uniform and Catalan police garb.
Here is some video from the French Daily L’Equipe, in French, with a money quote at the end from Florent Pietrus, the brother of NBA veteran Mickael Pietrus. I am in Paris tonight, sitting next to a bilingual American musician friend who is embedded here, who translates for us: “I think it’s going to be tough for us, but I think it’s going to be tough for them as well,” Pietrus said. The French team took the Eurostar train from Paris through the
What, you thought the Americans weren’t going to be prohibitive favorites in London? Check out the odds on the Americans winning the gold medal. You have to put $8 down to win $1. You want a dark horse bet in case the unfathomable happens? Take Brazil at 40-1. In case you forgot, Brazil was ahead of Team USA for almost the entire first half of their “friendly” in Washington, D.C. less than two weeks ago. And they have the healthiest front line with
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// BARCELONA — “Was that was the final margin was? Six?” Usually the reporters ask the questions and the players provide the answers. But the tables were turned as I spoke with Chris Paul after Team USA’s 86-80 victory Sunday night over Argentina, and those questions came from him. Yes, the final margin was six – 86-80, to be precise. But the margin earlier was 20, and the score was 16-1 in the early going as the Americans were making their first seven