Since the beginning of the FIBA tournament, all the experts and their mothers expected Team USA to meet their match against Spain for the gold in the final game. Just one problem: Spain will no longer play for the gold after a shocking 65-52 loss to France on Wednesday. Despite a valiant effort from Pau Gasol, who had 17 points and eight rebounds, the rest of his team struggled mightily against France’s tough defense, anchored by center Rudy Gobert and his game-high 13 rebounds.
BARCELONA — If the gold medal match was being played Sunday, Team USA would not beat Spain. It wouldn’t even be close. But the gold medal game is not this Sunday. It is next Sunday. And a lot can change in a week. So the burden is on coach Mike Krzyzewski: Figure out who is going to give you the best chance to beat the host nation, start shortening up the rotation, and hope that in one week you can achieve what it
Team USA had nothing to play for, and it showed. The Americans already had clinched Group C at the FIBA World Cup by winning their first four games. While other countries jockeyed to get into the knockout stage – or avoid certain opponents – Team USA was on cruise control in Friday’s game vs. war-torn Ukraine. The United States was playing for the fifth time in six nights and had a start time four hours earlier than Thursday. The combination of apathy
For some reason, the Phoenix Suns have put themselves in quite the vulnerable situation. With innovative coach Jeff Hornacek at the helm, the Suns were truly one of the biggest surprise teams of last season. No one expected them to be in a dog fight to be a playoff team in April. Hell, not many expected them to win even 30 games. Yet, they won 48 games and became one of the most dynamic offensive teams in the league (eighth-best offensive
In a day where all 24 teams played in the FIBA World Cup leading up to Thursday’s frenetic first round finish, it was The Manimal who again stood out in another Team USA victory. After a closely contested first quarter, Kenneth Faried helped the Americans (4-0), once again propelled by their big men, take the second and third quarters by a combined 26 points and defeat the Dominican Republic (2-2) 106-71 to advance to 4-0 and clinch the best record in
When you shoot 8-for-11 from the field, as Kenneth Faried did Wednesday in Team USA’s 106-71 victory over the Dominican Republic, and your shooting percentage for the tournament actually goes down … well, that says something about the kind of tournament you are having. Faried is unquestionably the leading candidate to be MVP of the 2014 FIBA World Cup after four games of pool play. The question is whether he will be able to keep it up over Team USA’s next
Free agency has died down, the FIBA World Cup is in full swing and training camps open in less than a month, which makes it as good a time as any to look back at the NBA offseason and determine who were the biggest winners and losers. We didn’t limit ourselves to a round number. The list includes teams, coaches, players and even an executive. It is in alphabetical order and doesn’t have some secret analytic formula that determines the biggest
The debate over whether Derrick Rose should be playing for Team USA is behind us. Clearly he is not yet himself, and clearly he is using the FIBA World Cup to get himself back into playing shape so he has a running start when the Chicago Bulls’ NBA season begins. A big test is coming Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday as Team USA plays on three consecutive nights. We will have a much bigger body of work to judge him on when those three days