Pointless interview with Tina Thompson runs on for 2 minutes longer than it should. 15 years of experience should teach NBA that WNBA = TV disaster. Shut up already.
if you take out how much bigger, stronger, and athletic he is, howard might be playing worse than boozer. he either commits stupid fouls, gets good position and then just shoves someone for an offensive foul, blows a layup, misses all his free throws, or commits goaltending on a ball coming up about a foot short. thank goodness for bosh.
What has happened the last two games for Team USA is they have completely stopped being an all-star squad and have finished the transition to becoming a true team. It finally feels like they have adjusted to the FIBA rules and bizarre refereeing. Wade & LeBron have stepped forth as the best players (Kobe too, except for the shooting) and everyone acknowledges that. Coach K has settled into an 8 man rotation and isn't worried about egos and playing time. When this Team USA plays with focus and intensity, the opponents have no chance. What we are seeing is the USA is still ahead of the world by a good margin. We finally have a team with most of our best players that has fully adjusted to FIBA and to playing with each other. For 2012, we need to keep a mix of the current squad, add 3-4 younger players in the rotation and we'll be fine. But I have doubts USA Basketball will make the same comment going forward. For the 4th/5th time, I'm calling out the loser who argued we didn't need Wade.
I was one who questioned bosh being on the team. Wrong. Even though our big men are leaner and faster they still have the strength to play defense down low on the other teams'.
Remember Bosh prior to this year. I think Howard needs to be on the 2012 team as this experience will teach him something. He clearly isn't comfortable and it's good for us that Bosh has stepped up. With some players, the adjustment takes longer.
as good as he is, he still has so much to learn. you hear about guys getting by on athleticism all the time and its almost always unfair but howard is a player its completely true about
I wonder if any of these Spanish basketball players have ever heard of shaving? It's like watching a Geico commercial.
yao is better than howard offensively. but certain guys are not meant for the international game. even duncan struggled a lot. and dwight doesnt get a lot of touches b/c we have too many stars so his stats are skewed. kobe is also struggling b/c he's not getting touches.
what a demolition that was. such a satisfying blow out. the only thing that sucks is that we just beat greece and spain by a combined 60 points (60 points!) and yet if one of them or argentina slips by us by 5 points in the medal round, it will mean nothing and again all we'll hear is how terrible the americans are. hopefully destroying spain by this much should give us a tremendous amount of confidence that if we come out and really go after someone, we can beat anybody and beat them handily.
it really does seem like it. they feel more comfortable having 18 pt/8 ast games like lebron did instead of trying to spread it around. let the big dogs be the big dogs and let guys like deron williams and chris bosh dominate in role player roles. that should be the plan but i don't know how many we can get to come back. lebron, wade and carmelo are already on their 5th summers and 4th competitions with the team. what we really need is lebron. he's a physical beast no one else can even come close to and he's probably the best passer in the nba as well (if not, certainly top 3), making him just dominant in these games. if wade commits again they are two guys very comfortable in this format who are just playmakers who give us a big advantage. i know, he sucked. didn't know what to do, not using any of his strengths. now he's out there guarding big guys, pestering guards on pick and rolls, getting open down low for passes, just making plays everywhere.
he should definitely like if they're really going to the rectangular lane and longer 3 point line. he is a perfect example of someone who can be affected just by a rule change, even though he's still the same guy he was before. let him get deep position a foot or two closer to the basket and back off the perimeter defenders another 2 feet out away from him and he should look a lot more like his NBA self, a guy who everyone has a ton of trouble containing. also, give him another 2 or 4 years to get a better and it should really be nice for us. man, we just can't let up at this point. i haven't wanted anything in sports as much as this olympic tournament for a long time (well, maybe the patriots losing the super bowl). i wanted 20+ point wins over everyone not so much for the gold, but just to shut people up for a while and to realize what happens when we really commit. if we bring it home and put up a few more performances like these 2 (presumably we shouldn't need to until the semis) i will be ecstatic.
what a dominant game by team usa vs. the very poor defense by spain. the last two games by the nba stars have been a pleasent surprise after the first two relatively poor games. i've got a feeling that greece and spain haven't shown all they've got, though. but it probably won't matter, either. if team usa continues this way they'll win the gold. and they'll deserve it.
Greece will have to play Argentina in the quarters then the US in the semis - they are basically done. I guess they could throw the game vs. China to avoid Argentina (which would be very characteristic) and instead play Lithuania, but then they get to go through Lithuania and Spain - a tall order for a team that isn't that good or playing that well.
If the USA team continues improving each game like they are, then yes, the expected improvement of other teams won't matter. I mean, not only are they getting better, but Kobe really hasn't shown up, yet. If he starts fitting in and avoiding foul trouble, that can only help. Of course, his backup (Wade) is the tourny MVP so far. so....lol
