With 1 TO left should definitely have had a big guy on the floor for the rebound and TO. Little guys instinct is to outlet for the pass.
It's probably unlikely these two teams will meet again. I think Brazil's chances to advance are very slim. They need to beat Nigeria in the last game of the group stage round and also needs Spain lose to Argentina. Plus, Brazil owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Spain.
Argentina vs Brazil Highlights (link, 6min): Argentina survives 2OT nail-biter vs. Brazil Replay (link)
Thats always been around the norm for US team assist leaders. That might even be near top 10 in Olympic rankings (not many teams in it but still) Also FIBA counts assists different. TRUE assists where the pass leads directly to a score, not like NBA where they catch the pass take 6 dribbles then 6 pump fakes, look to see who else they can pass to but then decide to shoot, and they still credit passer for "assist" .... But if a talented US player is too good to be stopped on a dribble drive, thats gonna take away assist numbers. Paul George can take the ball the length of court and score all himself with no chance of assist opportunity. I think they need to work the bigs in better, yes that requires good team PASSING. Teams seem to be taking away the famous deadly US fast breaks and turning it into half court play. But unless they can get Boogie and DeAndre better involved thats not gonna be good for US. They need to play better defense to start the fast break offense then
Fantastic heart shown by the Nigerian team during the Olympics so far. Just beat Croatia...after playing Lithuania and Spain close. Doing it without their two committed NBA players(Al-Farouq and Festus), without one of their centers who tore his Patella in the 1st game-Shane Lawal) and without others who turned them down (Victor Oladipo, Jahlil Okafor). Great stuff being shown and given how Brazil has played so far, I'm not sure a win is a guarantee for Brazil when both play in the final group game.
Watching France keep it close with the US team. It's criminal that Klay Thompson wasn't out there to start the 4th. Draymond and Cousins are just not suited to the FIBA game. They're bangers and that's no good in this game.
I don't know why people are surprised. The starting lineup does not have any particularly good defenders, nor anybody that is a particularly good passer either. The bench does not have any particularly good shooters. This roster is so flawed.
Which is why it's on Coach K to mix and match. You mix a few good defenders in the starting lineup. I'd say Klay Thompson a pretty good defender though. Moving Melo to the bench would help or bringing Kyrie off the bench would also help I think. The team has more than enough to play good defense and also move the ball. There are just too many excuses being used for these guys. They better figure it out soon because now it's one and done round.
If Green could shoot the FIBA ball, he would be fine. Cousins doesn't belong on the team. Besides the standing around, lack of ball & player movement, Team USA needs a PG content with setting other players up. Lowry and DeRozan are fine against sorry teams when the game is barely a scrimmage, but are worthless otherwise. Teams USA plays offense without a plan or purpose which makes them very easy to defend. Unfortunately, if they go cold, I think they have a good chance to lose.
i'm trying to imagine how durant could be more of a disappointment? the guy has gone 4/16 and then taken 4 shots and 5 shots (even if he was 5-5) in the last 3 games. and that's not even the worst part. i've lost count of how many offensive rebounds he's given up and the number of careless turnovers he's committed and the lack of effort/attention to detail on D is amazing. he gets beaten backdoor, doesn't notice diaw behind him on a fastbreak, drops an inbound pass to start the 4th quarter and then doesn't even get back. with the US up 10 with 2:25 to go he manages to lose a behind the back dribble and start a fastbreak for france. he's supposed to be the rock of this team, like the 2010 world championships, and he's just been awful. or disengaged, one or the other. has he been tweeting with australia to see if he can join their team? overall it's just amazing to watch the lack of value team USA places on each possession and their inability to guard a pick and roll, considering pick and roll is all anybody runs in the nba so it's not like they haven't practiced it. and if the refs are going to call travel every time team USA pump fakes a 3 and starts driving, could they actually try to call it every once in a while on the other team? france had 2 clear as day travels like that in the first half and somehow it was missed but the US gets called for it twice in the 2nd half, with the one on derozan not being nearly as obvious. finally, coach K's refusal to ever stop a run with a timeout is something i don't get. he should've torn into the team after the first 2 minutes of the 4th quarter when they had already committed 2 stupid fouls and several sloppy turnovers (including that inbound by durant) and didn't look like they cared. find 5 guys who do care in that case. he seems to have a zap branigan attitude to runs by the other team: "coach it's an emergency!" "come back when it's a catastrophe."
did you see that french fastbreak where melo actually got back forced a missed layup while kyrie just jogged back and then stood there and watched a french guy grab the missed layup and put it in? could you imagine if harden did that what the reaction would be? kyrie seems to think his championship means he's too good to play D on this team. yeah cousins is fine against overmatched teams when he just grabs offensive rebounds. against a real team, he doesn't get all those offensive rebounds and then the facts he can't play PnR defense or protect the rim or stop turning the ball over come into play. granted, the refs seem to like him about as much as they liked tim duncan back in 2004, but it still doesn't change the fact he's largely irrelevant against good teams. what's weird is they could probably just run a PnR on every single play and get a good shot. i almost never see any defense not have to start rotating all over the court when we do that. klay got a bunch of open 3's in the 3rd just from being on the weak side of PnR's. this team just forces so many stupid passes considering how easy passing should be since no one can really pressure our ball-handlers. all i would focus on for offense would be not turning the ball over, even if it keeps the offense very basic, and running PnR's every time down. of course, that doesn't change the fact that the D is an even bigger disappointment than the O. we're still essentially scoring quite a bit. i thought we were done with turning no name guards and roll men into superstars but we've done it several straight games now. we seemingly end up with 1 guy behind the play and 2 on 1 near the basket. i don't exactly know what to do but maybe try going under a pick every once in a while since not a lot of these teams are great at shooting, or even trapping the PnR. whatever we're doing isn't working.
f4p, I remember 2010 well but that squad was a true team where players knew their roles. They played with a purpose on offense, guys accepted reduced roles with gusto and the sum of the parts was maximized. What we see this year is an All-Star team where everyone is trying to be an all-star. The complacency by the players and coaches during the pre-tournament games is biting them now. Team USA should never schedule Team China ever again, much less twice. That was stupid.
This team is pathetic to watch and using the term team is generous when they play so much 5 on 1 especially in that fourth quarter. Might as well have been coached by Donovan or Brooks... What was the most infuriating was the only one who even cared to play off ball was Klay like that one play in the fourth where Klay cuts over to the corner and he's yelling at KD to move/cut and he just throws up his hands and stands still. Nobody sets off ball screens or helps other people get open.
Yeah. That was pretty bad. But as said previously, the team as a whole doesn't value possessions. It's almost like watching the Rockets in the sense that they don't care as much about defense, and they think they can win games on the offensive end. So far it's worked, but it's only going to get tougher in the elimination round coming up. If they keep playing with fire like this, they'll eventually get burned. After the Australia game, I thought that they'd clean it up a bit. It seems it's gotten worse and worse now. This team almost has a 2004/2006 team feel to it. A quick PG can exploit this team to death with the PnR because the US team fails to make adjustments.
Everyone here is saying this roster is flawed, the game plan or coaches are flawed. Then what team with what players would be best? Obviously you would want Lebron and Curry. Discounting those two what players would be best? Perhaps the players are not giving full effort though. And thinking that 80% and talent is good enough.
Durant has looked awful since the last few games of the playoffs..perhaps he's letting all the talk get to his head? He used to dominate FIBA.
