BARCELONA — Quite the bizarro scene in the post-game press conference after Team USA destroyed Lithuania in the semifinals of the World Cup. There was a reporter from Slovenia who had been going back and forth with coach Mike Krzyzewski over the past several days — he wanted to ask questions that Coach K did not want to answer, and Coach K told him he’d answer his questions over a glass of wine when the time was appropriate. So the guy from
So how does it feel, Spain? How does it feel to come up woefully short of expectations? How does it feel to be embarrassed by an inexplicable loss on your home floor in front of your blindly supportive fan base? How does it feel to be relegated to classification games while visitors vie for the international championship you believed was rightfully yours? Yeah, it wasn’t supposed to go down this way. Your march through the 2014 World Cup wasn’t supposed to be
Spain was targeting another classico with Team USA. Instead, they will have to settle for classification. In one of FIBA’s bigger upsets in recent memory, host Spain lost to France, 65-52, in the quarterfinals of the World Cup on Wednesday. The Spaniards came into this World Cup looking to avenge narrow losses to the United States in the final of the 2008 Olympics and the 2012 Olympics. They believed they had the personnel to match up with the Americans – especially after Team USA
BARCELONA — Two years ago, when Team USA was jam-packed with superstars at the London Olympics, they played Lithuania in the preliminary round. Forty minutes later, they were fortunate to escape unscathed. The final score was 99-94, as Lithuania stuck with the Americans until the final minute. It was the only competitive game for Team USA until the gold medal match against Spain. That version of Team Lithuania had a bona fide alpha dog in Linas Kleiza, who is not competing this
BARCELONA — Attack mode. Derrick Rose had lost it. Now, after a long one-on-one meeting with Coach Mike Krzyzewski, he has rediscovered it. And all that talk about how he was hurting rather than helping Team USA should disappear, too. It was a sight to behold Tuesday night in a 119-76 victory over Slovenia, the Derrick Rose we had grown accustomed to seeing a couple years ago before the two knee injuries. The guy who exploded to the basket and always was
If you’re wondering where Derrick Rose ranks among the NBA’s top 10 point guards, he doesn’t. Neither does Deron Williams. Or Kemba Walker. Or Kyle Lowry. Point guard is the most demanding position in the NBA. And in ranking the top floor generals, we have demanding criteria. Is your favorite point guard an All-Star? How long has he been at that level? Is his current career track pointing upward or downward? Where does he rank among scorers at the position? Assists? Does he
BARCELONA — A reporter from Slovenia asked DeMarcus Cousins a question Monday: “Do you know where Slovenia is?” Cousins snapped back: “Do you know where Alabama is?” Touche. The reporter was undoubtedly pursuing the storyline of “They don’t respect us, they don’t know us, they don’t even know where our country is located.” It is as predictable of a storyline as you could imagine, but Cousins was not taking the bait. So make that two big days in a row for the big man
Houston Rockets guard James Harden has a notorious reputation for being a lousy individual defensive player. Though there aren’t any statistics that perfectly measure a player’s actual impact on the defensive end of the court, there are a few that help paint the picture a bit more clearly. One such stat, which weighed heavily in San Jose Mercury News sports writer Tim Kawakami listing Harden on his 2014 NBA No-Defense Team, is Defensive Real Plus-Minus (DRPM). DRPM, as defined by ESPN, measures a player’s