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.

Catching Wind

With the US National team's last exhibition game against Australia more than two days in the rear view mirror and the opening game against China still three days down the road, it's time for a quick look around the blogoscape.

These landmarks stick out -

1. As David Friedman reported in his Team USA Exhibition Tour Report Card, Dwayne Wade has been mighty impressive lately.
He's shooting .723 FG & and, surprisingly to me, is shooting better from deep (5-7 3 pt. %) than Deron Williams (1-6).
"
2. Meandering through a past blog about Team USA's 2007 evisceration of Argentina, David also mentioned something that I had never known about the genesis of the 1992 Dream Team. In the late 1980s, when FIBA proposed that the US inject professional players into future Olympic competitions, the US evidentally "was the one country that was initially opposed to the idea. The fact is that sending college players to compete against other countries' professionals is pointless; the college players cannot win in these kind of events and it is better for the development of the game for the best to play against the best."

A USA basketball article clued me in that:

"In 1986 - two years before Americans lost in '88 - the rules were nearly changed. FIBA Secretary-General Stankovic introduced the resolution for open play at a FIBA convention, and the vote to allow all professionals to play was 31-27. At the time, Stankovic said 18 or 19 countries abstained from voting, but if only five had changed and voted "yes," the resolution would have passed and the original Dream Team could have debuted in 1988 rather than 1992."


3. In a recent prognostication article, CNN SI's Ian Thomsen writes, unsurprisingly, that Spain is favored for silver. He said one reason for this because the fleet, full-court oriented Spanish squad "lost the European championship final last summer when the Russians slowed the tempo. By trying to push the ball up the court, the Spaniards will be playing to the preferred pace of the Americans."

Then, almost shockingly, he quotes Ettore Messina, the highly respected coach of CSKA Moscow, saying that Spain would be content to settle for silver: "Their goal realistically has to be nothing more than to make the final. I remember they were so happy when the draw put them in the same group with the U.S., meaning they [are likely to] face the U.S. only in the final. I think they are thinking of second place.''

I can understand why Messina said Spain was glad that they are in a situation where they will not (in the elimination games) likely face the US until the finals, but I cannot fathom a team with 6+ NBA-caliber players not considering gold as a realistic goal. If anything, after last year's loss in the Euro Championships in Madrid, I would expect Spain to be more hungry for gold than ever. The possibility of one nation holding the FIBA and Olympic championships in basketball, and the Euro Cup in soccer, as Spain has a chance to do, is unreal.