That's rather short sighted, he had a bad game today in an int'l rules game. See performance with Kidd injured this year. He had some monster games.
They did what any well-coached/well-managed team would do: Exploit their opponents weaknesses. -Challenge the US to shoot 3s -Take away the pillar of the US' offense (Duncan) -Stop the US' offensive scheme (penetration) by clogging the lanes. And they did what they needed to do on offense: -Penetrating the ball on the US 'defense' -Swing the ball to the open man I give them a lot of credit for that
It would figure that it would be a f*cking Jazz player that's leading this team to beat us. F*ck Puierto Rico and Carlos Arroyo. F*ck Stu Jackson too. INTENTIONAL FOUL????? They've been doing that to us all game!!!! We didn't get no damn intentional fouls!!! F*ck the refs as well.
Int'l refs are a joke, that's true, the US should just accept that they will never get the calls and can't rely on the refs in a close game.
Maybe I'm just bitter that we all consider these players to be SOME (not THE) best that the NBA has to offer and they still can't perform. Bad reffing and international rules aside, there's absolutely no excuses for missing wide open put ins under the basket unless you're a slow, vertically challenged, and uncoordinated 5'9" asian basketball player like myself
Sad. You've got to blame T-Mac and the others who skipped out. Other than Duncan, T-Mac would've been the best player on this team.
Although everyone played pretty crappy, I feel like putting most of the blame on Richard Jefferson. He missed at least 7 wide open looks, including at least one pathetic airball. And he messed up during a very crucial point in the 4th quarter where he had a wide open baby hook shot and missed, resulting in a fastbreak and consequential 3 point play by ARroyo (who by the way KILLED us today). Instead of being down by 7, they found themselves down by 12. Very pathetic display by USA.
I don't point the finger at the players that backed out unless they say something negative about this team. It's one of those "Yea you wanna b!tch about it? You should have played. Otherwise, shut it" kind of situations. Once again, if you replaced Amare and Melo with Brad Miller and Michael Redd, we'd be winning. I honestly believe that.
Not sure if he would've made much of a difference unless he brought his 3 pointer. Garnett is the guy that can still physically overmatch Int'l still, he would have helped.
This is throughly embarrasing. Team USA should just leave right now... they don't even deserve to be there. Stu Jackson should lose his job as head of Team USA basketball. Even though it isn't really his fault that his top choice of players didn't play, it is his fault that he continued to extend invitations to the flashy popular players (Marion, Marburry, James, Carmelo) and forgetting that you need experienced, fundamentally sound, basketball players to succeed in the international game. Let old-man Stern, and the rest of the NBA coaches, back in charge of this thing... I somehow tend to think that they could not only convince the best players to actually play, but he'd also give EVERYONE a fair chance at making the team regardless. But, if he doesn't care... and we're not taking this thing seriously... the NBA shouldn't even be there then. Send players who WANT to play, and you'll get a team that will represent you well... not embarass you.
I'd have a lot of enthusiasm and pride if I led my team in the defeat of the USA team as well. Makes you think about how a 3 year/13 mil guy can do so much while a 6 year/78 mil guy can do so little.
You're right. The obvious answer is to have our best play. But if we can't get that, the team should've been better assembled.
