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After dismantling Spain, Team USA stands at gold-worthy level
You must be registered for see images attachBy Chris Sheridan
ESPN.com
Updated: August 16, 2008You must be registered for see images attachStreeter Lecka/Getty Images
LeBron James didn't have much to complain about in Team USA's brilliant 119-82 thrashing of Spain.
BEIJING -- Spain tried everything. Pretty much none of it worked.
The zone? Team USA shot over it, drove the baseline against it and picked it apart.
The pick-and-roll? Spain tried it a lot early, and you know how many points its best player, Pau Gasol, had in the first 12½ minutes running it? Zero.
The press? Let's put it this way: If another team tries to use the full-court press against Team USA, it might as well just walk off the court and forfeit. Open up the court for the Americans, like the Greeks did two nights earlier and like the Spanish foolishly tried to in this one, and they'll crush you.
What made Saturday's 119-82 throttling of Spain so impressive was the way the Americans did everything so extraordinarily well. They're getting better each game, they're improving their few weak areas and the only thing that's scary about this 37-point beatdown is the notion that they might have peaked.
It's up to them to prove that they haven't, because the plane ride home is still more than a week away. But if they're going to keep bringing it like they brought it against the reigning world champions, there's no way they're going to lose.
"Twenty-eight turnovers is just a staggering number," said Gasol, whose team's field goal total matched its turnover total.
And another staggering number from the box score: The fast-break points were listed as 32-0.
"First time I've ever seen that happen," Carmelo Anthony said.
There was another astonishing number at halftime. When the U.S. had already opened a 16-point lead despite Spain shooting 58 percent from the field, the Americans had already forced 17 turnovers, and all 10 players Spain had used committed at least one.
"The only place Spain is beating us tonight is at the ashtray," NBA and USA Basketball official Brian McIntyre said outside the media entrance, where Spain's nicotine addicts had the American media outnumbered something like 15-2.
It never got close in the second half, and Jason Kidd even managed to attempt his first shot of the Olympics, a lefty layup off a feed from LeBron James on a 2-on-1 break after Dwight Howard had rejected Marc Gasol's shot at the other end.
"I thought he was going to give it back to me, because J never shoots the ball," James said. "Couldn't believe he laid the ball up. I thought he was going to give it back to me off the backboard."
The victory clinched first place in Pool B for the Americans, who complete opening-round play against Germany on Monday, then they likely face Australia in the quarterfinals, then Argentina or Lithuania in the semifinals.
James could find only one fault with Team USA's performance, saying it had three or four unforced errors when it tried to force outlet passes to the point guards when Spain hung back on defense. But he rated this overall performance as superior to the one two nights earlier against Greece.
"We didn't shoot the ball particularly well against Greece, from the free-throw line or the 3-point line," James said. "But we shot 45 percent from 3 and almost 80 at the line, so that's a plus. We know we're going to defend, we know we're going to get fast-break points, but when we can shoot the ball from the outside like that, and shoot free throws, it's going to be tough for anybody to beat us."
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Kobe Bryant's dunk helped Team USA to its biggest win in Beijing so far.
Pau Gasol called it a statement game by the Americans: "They're for real. They're serious about this."
James? He didn't totally agree.
"Statement game? I don't know. It means nothing. It means that we're 4-0, but we've got to continue to play better," James said. "I'm the leader of the team, and I'll make sure there's no slippage."
Slippage is what tripped up the Americans two years ago at the world championships in Japan -- slippage and panic. And when they fell behind by eight in the third quarter against Greece and started pressing and panicking, the deficit ballooned to 18 before they knew what hit them.
So as much as it appears this Olympic basketball tournament is going to be a gimme, as much as it appears Team USA is going to be the 12-man version of Michael Phelps, the Americans can't allow themselves to let up, to be overconfident, to put any more stock into this victory than what it was -- a preliminary-round victory.
They've still never had to play from behind, they've still not had to deal with early foul trouble for their big men, they still haven't run across a referee who seems out to get them (although Spain did in its game against China, with two particularly egregious calls: a technical against Spain's bench when China was on the verge of a five-second violation, and a phantom foul against Rubio when China had the ball with the game tied and the game clock inside 20 seconds).
They still haven't won anything.
"This was a good lesson for us to learn what we need to do to compete with a team that's at the U.S. level," Gasol said. "So hopefully we'll learn and put it behind us."
That's what the Americans need to do, too. Put it behind them.
The charter flight back to the good ol' U S of A doesn't go wheels up until Aug. 25, and the best thing they can do from here is fight off the mental and physical fatigue, keep their eyes on the prize and forget about what happened against Spain. It's still too soon to feel too good about themselves, no matter how uncommonly awesome they looked. That's what they need to take away from this game.
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World offers little challenge to Team USA
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 2 hours, 41 minutes ago
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BEIJING – The United States is desperate to drain the drama out of these Olympic Games, delivering doses of destruction at a frightening and ferocious rate now. Spain surrendered without so much as a struggle, the defending world champion leaving itself and the rest of this tournament’s teams to ask a most sobering question: Never mind beating the Americans, can we even give them a game?
When the U.S.’s 119-82 beating was over, a bewildered European reporter had a question for Spain’s star, Pau Gasol: Had Spain held back – tanked, essentially – so it could manipulate the brackets for Argentina instead to meet the United States in the semifinals? With the loss, it’s most likely that Spain wouldn’t meet the Americans again until the gold medal game.
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Make no mistake: The line for a silver medal starts behind Spain.
“They were sending a statement, ‘We are for real,’ and they sent it loud and clear,” Gasol said. “They wanted to show everyone they are superior, and they did.”
For those desperate to see the U.S. even challenged, they should hope that Spain was working that tanking angle. Who could even tell the difference? The U.S. never gave them a chance. The Americans never let them breathe.
Near the start of the game, Pau Gasol tried to set a screen on his Lakers teammate, Kobe Bryant, and just got obliterated. The message was unmistakable and the Americans pounded it into the Spaniards’ weary bodies and minds.
Here’s the difference between No. 1 and No. 2 in this tournament: Thirty-seven points.
So, yes, see you in the gold medal game.
“The Greek game, we thought we were going to be tested,” Carmelo Anthony said. “The Spain game, we thought we were going to be tested. We still have teams on the other side we haven’t played yet.”
That’s what Team USA is trying to tell itself anyway. The U.S. isn’t just destroying teams now, it’s delivering a goodwill clinic of the highest order. In the past, how the world had come to believe it could attack Americans centered on its lazy defense and spotty shooting. Suddenly, it’s impossible to run an offense against the U.S., a labor just to run a play against them without the ball getting swallowed up. The Americans are attacking in a way on defense that is systematically creating chaos, a perfect storm of athleticism, strength and speed that this time unleashed itself on the gifted Spanish guards.
“I guess you could say Americans haven’t played defense for the last eight years,” Jason Kidd said. “Look at 2004. Look at 2006. Our defensive intensity wasn’t high. Now, with the maturity of these guys, they understand what it takes.”
The 16 steals out of Team USA came from picking passes out of the air and scooping up dribbles and literally ripping the ball out of the Gasol brothers’ hands. These aren’t five separate fingers on the U.S. defense, but a fist. They move on a string, one movement related to the next, and the next, and the swarming upon the Spanish guards made it impossible for them to run an offense. Pity poor Ricky Rubio, the 17-year-old thrust into that grinder in this Pool B game.
The Americans pressured Spain’s players with the ball, blitzed passing lanes and created a torrid of turnovers and steals that sped the U.S. fast break. This game was done in the second quarter, a TKO without so much of an instant of doubt. The prospect of going the distance with the Americans hasn’t appeared this daunting for a long, long time.
“What makes this team a little special right now is that watching us on tape is one thing, but when you have the speed factor up close, it’s a whole different ball game,” Kidd said. “That comes from defense and our transition game. Look at the guys on the floor. Dwyane (Wade)…LeBron (James) – they’re all pretty fast.”
Spain turned the ball over 28 times, a fact that allowed the Americans to feast on fast breaks for a 32-0 advantage on the run. The U.S. made 12 of 25 three-pointers, so many coming from Chris Paul’s and James’ penetration and passes out to the perimeter for open shots. The balance for the Americans is staggering – eight players reached double figures – and that’s gone a long way to creating an uber team where the sum creeps closer to matching the parts.
Resistance was futile for Spain. Nothing worked. Spain was called for a technical foul for slapping the ball out of the basket as a means to slow down the U.S. Officials are supposed to warn a team just once before that delay-of-game call, and the U.S. bench howled when Spain was granted a second warning, too. Eventually, that act earned them a tech. For such a swift and athletic team as Spain, one that can be spectacular in transition, it was sobering for everyone that Spain was scoreless on the run. Thirty-two to nothing.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that before,” Anthony marveled.
So exhausted were the referees with chasing the Americans up and down the floor, one Team USA veteran wondered whether the refs were blowing whistles on needless calls against both teams – the U.S. and Spain – just to stop the action and catch their breaths.
Through it all, Team USA’s gold medalist, Kidd, found himself searching for something to chastise his teammates for, to combat complacency. When the U.S. had a stretch of three consecutive turnovers, he lit into them. These days, the Americans aren’t chasing a gold medal as much as they are a standard of playing the game – perhaps even a small sliver of perfection.
“The small things are what win ball games and we got away from that after 2000,” Kidd said. “When you look at the rest of the world, that’s what they do well: All the little things. Pass the ball. Set screens. Make the extra pass. We got away from that. We thought our athletic ability was going to win ball games and that wasn’t the case.”
No more. Now, the Americans are doing it all again. The genius is in the details for American basketball again, and the defending world champion found itself flattened by 37 points on Saturday night. Spain stumbled away dazed, despondent and with an unmistakable message for the rest of the world’s teams: The line for the silver medal starts behind us.
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