Quicks from game against Aussies :
"He's old." KB24 said it right.
How many times Melo lost his man ? Everytime. He and Kid should've stay at home.
So sad to watch CP13 got intimidate.
DH played like a deer in the head-lights.
LBJ, Wade was playing liked no to morrow.
Coach K was in the dilemma of win the game or split the minutes for everyone to taste.
Don't know what they're having in their sleeves but I worry.

Not a bad result for us. We kept it respectable and our defense has been pretty good. Although not many people have heard of any of our players, we have quite a few experienced guys and we are getting better as a team. We missed out on having Bogut during a lot of our lead up games because he was waiting to sign a new contract with the Bucks. So we're still fitting everything together.

Chris Anstey has played a few seasons in the NBA. (Bulls and Mavs)
David Andersen plays for the Euro champs CSKA Moscow.
Patty Mills just completed his freshman year in College with decent numbers.
Newley was drafted by the Rockets last season but played in Europe.

And of course Bogut, who was rested for the Olympics. He will be good to go.

That said, this is probably the toughest and most even Olympics ever.

USA, Spain, Argentina and Greece will be the powerhouse nations, with Russia, Germany, Lithuania and hopefully Australia trying to spoil the party.

__________________

Beer, putting words in my mouth is a little desperate.

If the USA does win the gold, it will prove to me that Coach K is a MUCH better coach than Larry Brown.

I would say he was the right coach for the job.

Browns problem was that he was trying to teach lessons rather than win games.

Yup. You got that right, Max.

When is the first game and is it going to be televised?

i think 9 AM EST on sunday, nationally televisted on NBC

So the US got off to a good start with a 101-70 beatdown over China. It was actually close for most of the first half, with China hitting a bunch of 3s (Yao managed to hit a 3 on their first possession) and the US bricking all its jumpers, but a big run by the US near the end of the half led into a lopsided 3rd quarter where China went ice cold. The 4th quarter was all garbage time.

In part, it was the old familiar routine of recent international competitions: lots of steals and unstoppable fastbreak finishes for the US vs. the 3-point gunning of the other team. One good sign for the US was that they really stuck to taking good shots on 3s, far more catch-and-shoot on open looks than taking a few dribbles and pulling up off-balance for a bad shot. The bad sign was they missed practically ALL of those shots for most of the game--at one point in the first half, Mike Breen said they were something like 1-12 on 3s but 21-25 on 2s!

The big challenge will probably come when the better teams--Spain, Argentina, etc.--can keep hitting shots all game long (unlike China, which couldn't hit anything after half time) and keep up the pressure on the US to convert on the other end, especially with fewer opportunities in transition. So a big question will be: if they stay disciplined and only hoist up 3s on good looks, will they eventually start falling (i.e. they missed today just because they were nervous in the first real game of the competition), or do these guys just suck so badly at catch-and-shoot that they won't be able to overcome it?

Breen and Doug Collins mentioned an interesting point that I hadn't thought of. The NBA is so enormously popular in China that the US team could very well enjoy a real homecourt advantage against other teams (though obviously they didn't have that today against China), as opposed to some other recent international competitions where everyone wanted to see the big dogs get knocked off.