Remember when Andrei Kirilenko was young, precocious and was a nightly threat to produce one of those statistical anomalies known as a 5X5 — reaching at least five in five statistical categories? The old AK-47 was back in the Olympic quarterfinals on Wednesday, producing a beastly line of 19 points, 13 rebounds, three assists, three steals and three blocks as Russia defeated a Lithuania team that would not quit, 83-74. Timofey Mozgov also had a very strong game with 17 points, and
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. //
Shaq on the free throw line today!!! My bad USA. Good win for us. Needed a game like that. On to the next. — Kevin Love (@kevinlove) August 4, 2012 Kevin Love shot just 3-for-8 from the foul line in Saturday’s nail-biter of a victory over Lithuania, and the Americans missed 12 shots in all from the charity stripe before being bailed out by LeBron James down the stretch. What can we take from this game? I go into it in a little more
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
I am going to give you a Team USA gold-or-not prediction in this column, and I promise you a prediction that goes against the grain. That’s all I’ll say about that … for now. First, I’ll hand over the podium and relay a quote that could be the defining declaration concerning the London Olympics: “Let’s no longer beat about the bush. This summer’s Olympics Games are going to be a catalog of disasters. Not everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Andrei Kirilenko is going to be visible to Americans this summer — even if it’s looking more and more likely he is headed back to Russia for another season with CSKA Moscow. (He has until July 12 to opt out of his contract), Kirilenko and the Russian national team qualified for the London Olympics on Saturday night in Caracas, Venezuela, by defeating Nigeria 85-77 behind 19 points, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals by Kirilenko. The Russians went undefeated in
The Greeks are out, Bo McCalebb is out, J.J. Barea and Carlos Arroyo are out, and there won’t be any Angolans to elbow around at the 2012 Olympic men’s basketball tournament. On a day of wild swings and finishes at the quarterfinals of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, the field of Olympic contenders was reduced to four — Russia, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria and Lithuania. Two spots will be determined in today’s semifinals, with both of those teams going into
By Chris Sheridan KAUNAS, Lithuania — The home team at EuroBasket still has a chance to make it to the Olympics, but it’ll be 10 months before Lithuania knows for sure. Sarunas Jasikevicius’ seventh assist of the afternoon, a pass to wide-open teammate Mantas Kalnietis behind the 3-point line, gave Lithuania a 79-77 lead over Slovenia with 19 seconds remaining. Jaka Lakovic missed a shot inside with 6 seconds remaining, Kalnietis made one of two shots from the foul line with 3.3 seconds remaining, and Slovenia’s last chance