Pathetic. Stephon Marbuy might be the worst player to ever score 20 points a game in the NBA. He looks like Moochie. More embarrassing failure for Stu Jackson. EDIT: Richard Jefferson is looking bad too, and even Duncan is in outer space right now.
No outside shooting, those wild open airalls are laughable. And more important, NO DEFENSE!!!!!!!!!!! They seem losing their confidence easily. It really shocks me. And Lebron, please stop biting your fingers.
These guys are plain and simple an embarrassment. When is this country going to figure out that the playground style crap is not how you win games? We need smart players, not the crew we're putting out there now.
I am astonished by the fact that Team USA have to play a miracle second half to win this game. That's totally astonishing, totally embarrassing.
a) marbury and marion should have their nba contracts voided for their performance so far. you can't tell me marbury can't hit one ****ing jumper. he never seems to have any problem against us. b) what have we missed, about 15 putbacks from about 5 feet? c) marion airballs a 3 and a layup, impressive. wade airballs a 15 footer. d) bigtexxx, where has there been playground ball in this game? no where. if you mean the american style doesn't win games, then apparently the word hasn't gotten round to peja and dirk that they should be bringing home title after title. the american style, whatever that is, still rules the nba. if you simply mean the people we chose, then that ties in nicely with part e) e) if there's any solace in this embarrassment, it's in knowing stu jackson is being proven a moron in a huge way. f) hey larry, awesome to see you've got 12 of the best players in america all playing tentative and like they have no idea what they should do. at this point, just tell them to go play and see what happens. watching everybody who has an open shot hesitate for 2 seconds to decide whether or not to shoot is getting ridiculous and we're overpassing and being too team oriented if you can believe it. hesitant shooters, especially when they are already poor shooters, is a recipe for disaster and a disaster you've got. g) where the **** is the defense. no international team should be able to score more than 75 against us. if we were playing even reasonable defense we'd have a chance to turn this around. h) will we keep it within 40?
No defense + no outside shooting = playground ball, mensa. This is a very different game than the NBA.
Thanks for that superficial analysis, hopefullly you have an equally superficial solution? When the US was beating other teams 129-56, was Anglola playinig "playground ball"?
Bullsh*t. I'm not seeing any "playground style crap" out there. What we have is a team that is hesitant and not shooting or playing agressively or in rhythm. Defense needs to improve and we need to get up and down the floor. If anyone's playing "playground style," it's Carlos Arroyo and Puerto Rico. And they're killing us.
i'm sorry but when you're being paid millions...MILLIONS of dollars to play a game and you can't even perform some of the easiest tasks (layups, and 3 ft put ins) you should be exiled to a third world country. Marion...what is he shooting? 0 for 10? I partly blame this on the players but I blame Stu Jackson the most. After the dismal World Championship performace, what happened to assembling a team that can play together, regardless of their names? I can assemble a better team just off the top of my head: Center: Duncan Brad Miller Power Foward: Odom Magloire Small Foward: Prince Posey Shooting Guard: REDD Iverson Point Guard: Cassell Billups Reserves: Bosh Brent Barry Ron Artest Corey Maggette With the exception of Duncan, AI, and Odom, this team is a joke. Missing easy shots (Marion), Whining like it's the NBA (LeBron), letting PGs light you up in the paint (Amare), can't hit 13 footers (everyone).....sad... This team is more frustrating to watch than the Rockets during the Francis era
Sam, if you cannot recognize that we need to change the way we're doing things, I'm not sure what to say to you. Look at the scoreboard for crying out loud. By the way, the African country we whipped in 92 is actually named "Angola". I'll offer that up to you for future reference.
No chance for a comeback. Puerto Rico is playing the clock, driving into the lane, and throwing up prayers because they know the refs are giving them the call everytime. Its bull****.
How exactly is this Stu Jackson's fault? The fact is, the rest of the world is getting better, and we don't have our best players out there. If the originial guys, like Ray Allen and Mike Bibby, who are good shooters, had accepted, we would be winning.
Uh, yeah, the post that started this thread generally recognized that fact. However, your in depth solution of replacing "playground ball" with "non-playground ball" isn't exactly a panancea when Tim Duncan is missing layups and Richard Jefferson is getting burned on defense. Try again.
I didn't know how bad the refs were until this game. This is the 1st game of team USA I've seen and it's ridiculous. Isn't there some protest we can put up against the bias of the refs? Granted it shouldn't have to come down to that but if we're not allowed to play our NBA defense which is what our league is known for then I can see why international teams are killing us because our guys are tentative to play defense because of all the horrid calls. I feel so bad for them. At least it's not single elimation yet.
I hope those players who refused to play on this team are watching right now, so they know how shameful their act is. One good outside shooter and the US team would have blown these jokers away
By extending invitations to LeBron, 'Melo, Marbury, Marion, and Jefferson. If you don't think inviting them was more of a marketing ploy than a pure 'we need to win a gold medal' thing then you're delusional. Jackson might not have a final say, but he sure as hell didn't stop or deter the other USOC board members from handing out invitations to them. And Allen and Bibby aren't the only shooters the NBA has. PRIME EXAMPLE: Michael Redd. and heck, even Brad Miller has better range than LeBron and 'Melo.
