Man, watching this game, the USA have no excuses. Every team so far has been able to shoot the 3. Is it a coincidence that ALL teams that they play are hitting their 3's yet the US cannot hit them at all. It has got to a stage where they are leaving the American players WIDE OPEN!!!!! This is embarrassing.... Come on the AUSSIES!!!! )
a) can anybody on australia miss? no matter who it is, where they shoot it from, or how well they're guarded (which hasn't been that great) they can't miss. how exactly have they only averaged 68 points to this point? b) refs in fine form. offensive foul, ignore it, call foul on duncan. after realizing they had only whistled one foul on duncan so far, they call him for some cheap reach the next possession. of course, duncan could file assault and battery charges on most of the aussie frontcourt and yet can't get to the line. c) i've noticed this on both the australian and american free throws, but what's up with the rims? it's like playing right after it has rained or something. every time either team's shot touches the rim it slides right across it to the other side and bounces out. they aren't really hard like a double-rim playground rim, just slick as hell. d) finally we start hitting some inside shots. now if the D just steps up more we should be able to take this, but that seems to be a big if. e) we need to take more straight on 3's. iverson's two 3's have been straight away and we brick every single baseline 3. they'll give us the top of the key shot, take it, it's much easier.
Go Aussies Go not sure why they refuse to guard jumpshots btw agree on the refs they stink Andrew Gaze is doing commentary for us Aussies, and he said apparently the Euroleague (the best in europe) is not properly affiliated with FIBA and as a result the ref in euroleague which are the best in europe are not being used at the Olympics..... anyhoo, nice job Aussies, but if the yanks can run this will get ugly
Being an Aussie, I really want the Aussies to win. Having said that, i must agree that these refs are terrible. Most of the calls have been borderline at best, mostly soft touch fouls. The Americans are too tentative to shoot the ball from the perimeter which makes the job easier for opposing teams. It doesnt help of course that their outside shooting sucks. But anyone knows that when you hesitate before a shoot it does affect it doesnt it. Its not like these guys cant shoot. Honestly, its not as if all of these international guys can shoot better than the Americans.
Aussies by 2 at 3 quarter time nice run by the aussies to end the quarter after the yanks had finally taken the lead
The Larry Brown Doghouse Club: Jefferson, Stoudamire, Anthony Okafur not playing likely has zero to do with anything happening in practice. The rookies never get to play, but all the coaches have raved about his attitude and work ethic. Odom is by far having the best showing, followed by Iverson. It's pathetic that they can't feed Duncan in the post. They look like China a couple years ago. Evan
are we sure lebron james is 19? he was amazing. that pass to wade cutting down the lane was incredible. wade was still 5 feet from being open when james threw it but it was perfect. he made good pass after good pass, played great D, and is just a ton of energy whenever he's out there. he played so well you can't even complain about the airball. in terms of the games i've been able to see, it took 3 pre-olympic games and the first 2.75 olympic games but it finally happened. the U.S. finally imposed it's will on someone. we finally just wore a team down and made them feel like they didn't belong on the court with us. in the 4th we just swarmed everyone on AUS and started picking apart the zone and getting fast breaks galore. too bad it took 5.75 games to happen, but i'll take it. one more win and we're in the medal round guaranteed mathematically. we could potentially make it in with just these 2 wins if angola and australia don't win again but lets not try that route. duncan, odom, marion, james, and marbury (yeah him) should be our primary lineup unless iverson's hand gets better and then sub him for marbury. marion can't come close from 3 point range but he's showing great touch around the basket and he gets lots of dunks. now, you're probably saying well anyone can make a dunk, but the thing is, shawn marion always seems to be dunking. either because he creates the fastbreak or just runs like a gazelle to get in on the fastbreak, he's always there to finish and that is very valuable. in fact, our fastbreaking has been extremely successful. when we get even slightly in the open court our speed blows people away and we almost never mess it up. if we could get jefferson to figure out how to even hit a 5 footer we'd improve about 5 points a game. anyone else figures out how to shoot and we could medal.
Don't you think that's a bit arragont to say ? AUS just had a stretch where they didn't score for like 2 minutes after Neils fouled out. It happens all the time in bball.
i'm talking about the 4th quarter. we dominated the entire thing (we went from down 2 to up 15 in about 7 minutes). i'm not talking about the whole game. obviously we didn't impose anything on anyone for the first 3 quarters. hell, we looked like we didn't belong on the court for the first 15 minutes with the 3's raining down on us. but in the 4th, we played pressure D that clearly frustrated the aussie offense and forced a lot of long 3's and on offense we clearly got a rhythm going. combine that with numerous fastbreaks and i call that imposing your will. when the game starts being played the way you want it to be and you go on a long run, i say that's imposing your will and that's what happened. i don't see anything arrogant in that. i was just glad it finally happened.
Francis 4 Prez I agree with you on Lebron. He's our trump card. I didn't see the whole game but I saw the last 5 minutes of the third and the first 8 of the 4th. Lebron made all the difference. Not just those passes on the cuts by Wade, but his entry passes to Duncan. If I were Brown, I would start him and replace either Iverson, Marbury, or Jefferson. Probably Jefferson because if I were Larry, RJ would never see the court again. But that's another issue. But Lebron just makes things happen. He always, and I mean always, seems to get the ball where it is supposed to be. If he is in the game with Marbury, James should be the one to get the ball on the outlet pass on the break. He should almost always touch it in the half court set unless there is a lay up opportunity. Its like at 19, he's the smartest player out there. Its scary to think what this guy is going to do in the NBA when he's 22.(scary)
