Olympic Semifinals: US takes Argentina by 20

Factoid! Argentina is the oldest team in tourney.

First Quarter

Color commentator Doug Collins said if Argentina keeps turnovers to 13 or 14 "they will have a fighting chance." Let's check back on this in the fourth quarter.

In its loss to Argentina in 2004 US only shot 44FG% and 3-11 in threes.

Hark! Argentine PG Prigioni had 27 assists and only 4 turnovers coming into game, buthe commits one 3 minutes into a game.

The US gets off to a slow start, shooting 1 of 6.

Despite Argentina's age and short bench, it generally does not play zone. It will end up playing quite a bit in this game, though.



3:30: Ginobili is down with ankle injury. In conjunction with his 2 fouls and small forward Andres Nocioni's lingering knee injury from the last game. With the aid of an 18-0 spurt, the US goes into the 2nd quarter ahead 30-12

The US forced 7 turnovers.

2nd quarter

6:30: The tide seems to have shifted a bit. Nocioni bounds off of a gimpy knee and blocks Kobe's reverse dunk, then causes LeBron to lose the ball. Prigioni then hits a three and an offensive foul is commited by D-Howard, putting Argentina into the bonus.

A couple of free throws and an Argentina steal by Quinteros later, the US is "only" up 37-25.

4:20 - After a Carmelo 3-pt miss, the US has missed 5 of its last 6 threes. With Ginobili injured in the locker room, the US is up 37-29. Sharpshooter Michael Redd enters the game.

:40 - OH MY GOD. After a Scola lay-up, giving him 12 for the half, the White and Blue is down only 40-46. A scarily intense Nocioni screams himself red-faced from the Argentine bench, resembling an angry lumberjack on meth.

The US has forced 12 turnovers but only scored 4 points from them.

3rd Quarter

A couple of minutes in, James gets his 3rd foul as Nocioni bull-rushes the goal. After 5 fouls in FIBA play, you're out, so James had better watch out.

5:55 : Carmelo hits four consecutive technical foul shots, giving the US a 67-49 lead. He is 11-11 from the free throw stripe this game, which sure puts Kobe's 44 FT% to shame.

Final Score: 101-81

Argentina committed 17 turnovers, spelling their doom. As Chris Sheridan noted, Argentina committed only 10 turnovers in the final 32 minutes after beginning the game with seven by the time it was 21-4 late in the first quarter.

Carmelo, whom many considered America's best FIBA player before this tournament, had his strongest Olympic game, garnering a team-leading 21 points on 13-13 FTS.

Fascinating side-note for the upcoming Spain-USA title game: Team USA director Jerry Colangelo's son, Bryan, who runs Calderon's NBA team, the Toronto Raptors, will undoubtedly try to influence the Spanish federation to hold Calderon out of the final game. Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall for those conversations?

The US shot its lowest FG% of the tourney - 47% - and hit 10-31 threes.