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USA National Team 2012 Olympics

Nikoo said:
I think that team USA has one huge problems, that's overlooked by most of the basketball scholars. No, not the lack of size in the front court, but the lack of real leader at the point guard position. This team is like the 2004 and 2006 ones - no PGs, one of the reasons why the 08 and 10 teams worked was the presence of Jason Kidd and Billups, because they were able to dictate the game tempo by simply having the ball in their hands, now with Westbrook and Paul this would be impossible, the only hope Deron.

And the reason why Love doesn't play well is the lack of touches, the big fell must feel the ball and get involved in the offense, not watch how his teammates chuck away 3ptrs
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Very much true, the psychological dissadvantage of PG not sharing the ball is hugely underated. Sharing the ball basicaly means (or better putted-> should mean), getting sure that all 4 other guys get to touch the ball in majority of offenses, instead that expression is perceived as looking up for that final pass leading to a direct basket that credits an assist. There is nothing more frustrating than having to play with a PG like that, lacking of simple touches, no need to actualy do something meaningfull with the ball visibly enhances individual performance. That simple philosophy gets forgotten pretty easily though, from my experience, the better the PG the faster he forgets what sharing the ball is actually all about, loosing games along, cluelessly wondering how that actually happened later.
Few offenses where a player doesn't get to hold a ball, few fast breaks along without him, than suddenly chances for sloppy TO's increase, missed easy shots makes people stare and stupid defensive fouls follow the undecreased desire to make a positive change on court somehow, including doing it all by yourself if that's what it takes (prime suspect = Melo in the right circumstances :D). Basic bball psychology, yet so easily overlooked.

Yet to see how US PG's will behave on this tournament, at least we need to see more than only a few set plays in one game vs. Argentina, yet Billups was the prototype of that anti ballhog i am talking about, that made his teamates involved (litteraly) and US team playing vs. half court set defense in Turkey was a pure poetry when Billups ran the team, one of the best basketballs I've ever seen... yet due to lesser assists per game is considered as nothing than just a good PG, far from superstar level while Westbrook supposedly is there somewhere... either Billups is so underated it's scary or i'm crazy and should follow curling instead of basketball.
 
@Nikoo

Jason Kidd and Biliups can not be replaced. I think Paul and Williams will be fine.


I agree about Kevin Love. He is being ignored and needs more time. Love needs to drop the ego and just bang. If I was coach K I would start, Tyson Chandler(center), Kevin Love, Chris Paul or Deron Williams(PG, it doesn't matter really). Then the final two spots will be between Lebron, Durant, Kobe.

Chris Paul
Kevin Durant
Lebron James
Kevin Love
Tyson Chandler

or

Deron Williams
Kobe Bryant
Lebron James
Kevin Love
Tyson Chandler
 
Thoughts on the 1st half, currently 48-40 USA.

Both teams going at a level where they seem semi serious, this is definitely more than a friendly.

The US while they struggled in the first, as a whole seems a little more confident on offense, no spot up threes at the start of a shot clock. Lot more drive and dish.

Ball pressure kicked up in the second and seemed to be somewhat effective.

Ibaka killing us down low, and no Marc Gasol, definitely have to keep that in mind.

Finally Spain's getting a little home cooking, but nothing really worthy of mention. So reluctant props to the refs.
 
Melo is playing quite sensational compared to the previous games he's played with team USA during their friendlies.
Pressure defense made a big difference for team USA during the second quarter as they forced the Spanish team to make a lot of turnovers... Excellent preparation game for both teams as they head into the Olympics.
 
Good win for the US, Spain dialed back by the middle of the third, but then so did the US.

Not much to take here, but the US (at least when their starters are in) offense finally looks like it is on track.

Now the real games start on Sunday.
 
Strida said:
I'm gonna bust a gut if the USA wins Gold again and people start whining about the refs.
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Agreed! Referees were totally incompetent and biased this game! Spain did an illegal screen on EVERY POSESSION. On top of that, bullshit fouls were being called when Spain flopped.
 
i lost all respect for marc gasol, he talks trash when he knows he's not even going to play in the game. what a punk move.

i feel bad for fran he seemed a little disappointed with the result.
 
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Just watched the game on DVR. Thoughts and Observations:

1. lolololol. They brought the infamous Spanish Friendly Referees out of hibernation and we still kicked their ass.

2. So what? We don't win a friendly gold medal. Still hate that we played this game at all, there's enough pressure on us at the actual tournament. It would have been nice to get a look at Harden and Davis in some more serious situations but we can't afford to since we need to win all the friendlies.

3. Got not much out of Paul or Williams offensively today, but it didn't really matter since LeBron is the real creator on the team. Ball movement among the non-PGs was veryt good for much of the game. Westbrook is so frustrating because he is so good at getting to the basket but just doesn't finish very efficiently.

4. Our shooting was really hot and they were cold from three and the free throw line. Similar to the group stage game in 2008. If both teams have a "normal" game it's pretty close.

5. Kobe only took three shots? For real? And he made more than half?

6. Chandler now with 14 fouls in 67 minutes. Interior defense was still kind of a disaster, it's all going to depend on our perimeter pressure preventing other teams from getting the ball inside. On the plus side rebounding was a positive today.

7. In the "value" column they like to have in European boxscores, LeBron and Durant accounted for 47% of the team's total in the two games in Barcelona.
 
Well, it seems as Spain took the match as it was, a friendly game.
We didn´t show all the cards, clearly, Pau playing 23 min., no Marc, no Sergio Rodriguez, giving too much minutes to Felipe (In clear decadence), San "Cemetery" (The worst player in this team, by far), we were playing a lot of minutes with bench players at the same time.
The way they threw the personal fouls was really poor, narrow to 50 %,they failed 12 of 27
If we can recover Marc and Navarro for an hypotetical match against USA, it will be very different, maybe we will lose again, but that sensation of "not going to win tonight" will dissapear.
USA played last night at 90 % and Spain played no more that 60 % of its real potential in my opinion, they don´t like to lose even if they are training:D
Hope we will meet again in London, and then, Who knows?
 
Now that the US is done with its prep, us American fans should be ready as well with our tv and internet options for the games.

NBC and it's networks will have all the games, but it's a little different this year. There will be a Pure Olympic Basketball channel, now this had me scared until I saw the placeholder for the channel already up for Uverse, you might want to check your own cable provider to double check that. As a positive if you have the channel all the games mens and womens will be broadcast live in HD. Negative knowing NBC it will probably only be available in limited packages.

However there is some great news, NBC will be streaming every game live, so if you've been managing with sportlemon for the last couple months, this should be a step up. http://www.nbcolympics.com/online-listings/day=july-29/index.html

Failing both you can always catch USA vs France if you have NBC sports (formerly VS.)
 
Dtown said:
Now that the US is done with its prep, us American fans should be ready as well with our tv and internet options for the games.

NBC and it's networks will have all the games, but it's a little different this year. There will be a Pure Olympic Basketball channel, now this had me scared until I saw the placeholder for the channel already up for Uverse, you might want to check your own cable provider to double check that. As a positive if you have the channel all the games mens and womens will be broadcast live in HD. Negative knowing NBC it will probably only be available in limited packages.

However there is some great news, NBC will be streaming every game live, so if you've been managing with sportlemon for the last couple months, this should be a step up. http://www.nbcolympics.com/online-listings/day=july-29/index.html

Failing both you can always catch USA vs France if you have NBC sports (formerly VS.)
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Thanks for the information. Great post!
 
Dtown said:
NBC and it's networks will have all the games, but it's a little different this year. There will be a Pure Olympic Basketball channel, now this had me scared until I saw the placeholder for the channel already up for Uverse, you might want to check your own cable provider to double check that. As a positive if you have the channel all the games mens and womens will be broadcast live in HD. Negative knowing NBC it will probably only be available in limited packages.
Click to expand...

And it looks like they're actually going to show all the games live this year, as opposed to Beijing where the basketball channel for some reason showed two games a day on tape delay.

Also, for non-basketball streaming, they're apparently showing all events live, whereas in Beijing the events that were being televised on delay later weren't available for streaming. Now if only NBC's streaming app would work on my Droid...
 
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