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If you wanted to compare the possibilities of who might be the next U.S. Olympic basketball coach to the weather, the following would make perfect sense:
A heat wave will soon hit Antarctica, a driving rainstorm will be pelting the Sahara and Jerry Colangelo will no doubt hire Gregg Popovich.
This post went up about an hour before tipoff of the gold medal game, and the entire world was already certain that the United States would defeat Spain for the gold medal in London.
In the fourth quarter, that didn’t look like such a sure thing, but all that mattered at the end was USA 107; Spain 100.
The betting line on the game went from 19 1/2 to 21 1/2, and Spain went from a 20-1 underdog to 25-1. Those were some loooong odds for a team with a clearly superior size advantage, but Marc Gasol’s foul trouble throughout and coach Serge Scariolo’s refusal to play Serge Ibaka in the fourth quarter took that advantage away.
My pre-game pick was USA 104, Spain 94, with Kevin Love (who finished with 9 points and 9 rebounds) playing a big role.
I’ll voted LeBron James for team MVP afterward.
You agree? Vote below.
The line on today’s game has gone from 24 1/2 points to 25. And the over/under is 168.5.
If you think France can win by 1-to-5 points, you can get 50-1 odds.
Myself, I will be in the 19th district of Paris watching the game on TV with the Frenchies (at a place partly owned by Ronny Turiaf and Boris Diaw), wearing the stars and stripes and gathering material for Diary of the Uncredentialed Edition III.
If you missed Edition II from Barcelona, it is here. And if you missed Edition I from Manchester, England, is it here.
And for an epic Olympic basketball preview column, you can read this and see my unconventional pick for the silver medal.
I am going to give you a Team USA gold-or-not prediction in this column, and I promise you a prediction that goes against the grain. That’s all I’ll say about that … for now.
First, I’ll hand over the podium and relay a quote that could be the defining declaration concerning the London Olympics:
“Let’s no longer beat about the bush. This summer’s Olympics Games are going to be a catalog of disasters. Not everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Only lots of it.”
That line was written by the editorial staff of the venerable Times of London, and it was published two weeks ago in the context of organizational difficulties, especially those related to security.
But it could be germane to Team USA if something unexpected happens.
If Ronny Turiaf commits a hard foul against ex-Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant in Sunday’s opener and it breaks a bone in Kobe’s delicate hand, the equation will have changed.
If LeBron James sprains an ankle in the semifinals and can’t play for the gold, then what?
If (when) Tyson Chander gets into foul trouble against an opponent with multiple NBA bigs, the next line of defense at the center position is Kevin Love, Andre Iguodala, James or Carmelo Anthony. All four of those guys have already played center in the Americans’ five exhibition games. What if foul trouble causes neophyte Anthony Davis to be called upon?
What if Team USA has to defend a Spanish front line of Pau Gasol, Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol all at once, should the fickle Spanish head coach choose to play that threesome together. Then what?
“I am a beast,” a supremely confident Pau Gasol told Larry Fine of Reuters.
If the Americans have to defend Anderson Varejao and Nene at the same time, can Brazil exploit it? Maybe, because it has the best non-NBA point guard competing in London, a guy by the name of Marcelinho Huertas, who dropped 13 dimes in D.C. two weeks ago with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden watching from courtside seats. Team USA trailed for nearly the entire first half of that game.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski went into that Brazil game thinking it’d be a good idea to have Kevin Durant coming of the bench as the sixth man. That notion was quickly abandoned, and Anthony will have that role at the Olympics. (Dwyane Wade had to subjugate his ego and take on the sixth man role four years ago for Team USA in Beijing, and he was the Americans’ most valuable player, hands down.)
Durant or LeBron James will likely be the MVP for this U.S. team. Likely. But it could be Anthony, who presents a matchup problem as a stretch 4 playing against bigs unaccustomed to going out on the perimeter to defend.
Ironically, the 4 (power forward) spot is what should be the key position for the Americans. Their only true power forward is Love, who is teetering between being an impact player as the 9th man or a towel-waver backing up Davis. The choice is his, and it depends on his mental state — as discussed here.
If Durant, James, ‘Melo, Love and Iguodala can play well on the defensive end as the rotating 4s and 5s, the victories will come easily.
If a team with multiple bigs can consistently get the ball deep into the low post, it’s trouble.
“It’s sort of a double-edged sword,” Gasol said. “You have to try to punish them at one end, then adjust at the other end. And they’re loaded, so you have to be alert at all times.”
It should be a relatively easy opening night for Team USA against France, which is a 24 1/2-point underdog. (Argentina was a 28 1/2-point underdog last Sunday in Barcelona and lost to the U.S. by just 6.)
But the French are coming with confidence even though they do not have all of their NBA players. If you throw the missing Joakim Noah, Ian Mahinmi and Rodrigue Beaubois onto Les Blues roster, they would be scary. But they try to play the same speed style as the Americans, and even with a roster of current and former NBA players Tony Parker, Turiaf, Nicolas Batum, Nando de Colo (who will play for the Spurs next season), Boris Diaw, Mickael Gelabale and Yakhouba Diawara, they are going to be overmatched.
Of course, everyone thought Puerto Rico was going to be overmatched in the opener of the 2004 Olympics against an American team that included Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, James, Anthony, Wade and Amare Stoudemire, and we all remember what happened in Athens, right?
The Americans lost by 18 points to Carlos Arroyo and Co.
Nobody saw that coming, and although what happened in 2004 is largely irrelevant to what will take place in London in 2012, there is always some connection.
Because you never know what is going to happen in these tournaments. Every team is bound to have one bad game – even the Americans. It’s a rule of thumb in FIBA competitions that Manu Ginobili once explained to me in great detail. You can make the case that Team USA had its one bad game in Beijing in the gold medal match against Spain, when it surrendered 107 points and it was a four-point game with 3 minutes left.
That’s where the sphincter factor comes into play, and in 2008 it was Spain that tightened up in those final 3 minutes. When the game was out of reach with a minute left, the coach kicked the scorer’s table and took a technical foul. The Americans drained the two free throws, and it was over. Team USA ended up with 118 points and won by 11.
But the 225 combined points in a 40-minute FIBA game was astronomical. Again, nobody saw that high of a number coming.
That’s the thing about the Olympics: You never know.
All you can know is that the Americans’ opponents will respect them but not fear them. Ginobili and Luis Scola have already defeated Team USA before – twice, in 2002 and 2004.
Sarunas Jasikevicius has already defeated the Americans before (in 2004), and he had a shot to knock them out in the semifinals of the 2000 Sydney Olympics but was defended superbly on the final possession by Jason Kidd.
Watch this video of the tense final minute of that game if you want to see how close the Americans can come to losing against an upstart. Then read on for some background of what happened before that final shot by Jasikevicius sailed wide left.
_ Before Ramunas Siskauskas missed two of three free throws with the score 80-80 and 43.4 seconds left, he had not missed a free throw during the entire Olympics.
_ With 25.9 seconds left, the aforementioned sphincter factor came into play for Kevin Garnett, who missed two straight free throws before Antonio McDyess scored on the putback. (Also, go back to the 3:50 mark of that video and check out the Greco-Roman wrestling going on on the other side of the paint between Vince Carter and a Lithuanian player. That kind of physicality is common in FIBA basketball).
_ After Jason Kidd missed the second of two free throws with 9.4 seconds left, the ball was loose for four seconds before Siskauskas and McDyess were on the floor scrambling for it and a jump ball was called. Watch how quickly the ensuing jump ball violation (at the 6:40 mark of the video) was whistled – giving the Lithuanians their final shot.
_ Little-known fact: That US-Lithuania game was the second semifinal of the day. The French had won the first to make it to the gold medal match. Afterward, one of the referee assignments was changed for the US-Lithuania game. The replacement referee was French.
Why does any of this matter 12 years later?
Again, because you never know.
The scope and pressure and exhaustion factor of the Olympics is enormous, especially when you are at the event, on foreign soil and haven’t been home for 35 days by the time it ends. It is so much bigger, in such a different way, from the pressure of an NBA Finals game – with the exception of Game 7.
When you are one-and-done, it’s a whole different ballgame. Anyone recall what happened the last time there was a Game 7 in the NBA Finals? Kobe Bryant was 6-for-24, Pau Gasol was the best player on the court for the final 3 minutes, and the best player for the Lakers overall was Ron Artest, a guy who is so borderline nuts that he thanked his psychiatrist at the conclusion. (Artest will forever be immune from the sphincter factor for that Game 7 performance).
But back to these Olympics, this American team, and whether they can be defeated.
BARCELONA — There was a time not so long ago, in 2008, that Carmelo Anthony declared to a foreign media contingent that he actually liked FIBA basketball better than NBA basketball.
That is not the case anymore, he said Tuesday night. But we went on to acknowledge that his best NBA seasons have come after playing in FIBA competitions. (There’s a lil’ something for the Knicks fans back home).
And with the way he played off the bench in a 100-78 victory over Spain, he may be starting to fall in love with international ball once again.
Team USA was getting dunked on and looking decidedly deficient in the first quarter of its final tuneup game prior to the London Olympics, with Serge Ibaka putting on a one-man dunking exhibition and the Americans walking the ball upcourt instead of doing what they do best – creating turnovers, wreaking havoc on the defensive end, and using their athleticism and quickness to their advantage.
They were down 9 early, but then Anthony checked in with 6:05 left in the first quarter and changed the game all by himself. He had 10 points by the end of the quarter, making both of his 3-point attempts, and had 23 at halftime, including five 3-pointers, as the Americans surged ahead, 48-40.
Offensive bursts from Kevin Durant in the third quarter and LeBron James in the fourth helped Team USA pull away, and it will be heading into London with a head of steam after playing their best exhibition game yet in their final “friendly.”
“We’ve gotten better, and we need to use pool play to get five more international games under our belts, and I thought we reacted better tonight than we did two nights ago (against Argentina) to the international game, and we have to keep working it out,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
The Americans did not face a Spanish team playing at full strength. Marc Gasol sat out with a shoulder injury and Juan Carlos Navarro played only 22 minutes because of nagging foot and back injuries.
Coach Sergio Scariolo also did not use Pau Gasol and Ibaka as a tandem outside of the first quarter and the game’s final three minutes, and he had some success early showing the Americans different looks on defense each time downcourt – switching from zone to man to zone as Team USA was struggling to get into its comfort zone.
But that comfort zone is no longer exclusive to being able to produce points by playing the speed game.
These Americans can shoot it, and Anthony’s 5-for-8 shooting from 3-point range led a 13-for-23 performance from the arc.
“Carmelo is as versatile of a guy after LeBron as we have,” Krzyzewski said.
Indeed, Anthony played at the 3, 4 and 5 positions, and James spent more time defending Pau Gasol than did starting center Tyson Chandler (five fouls and two points in 8 minutes). Kevin Love also had his best game of this summer with 9 rebounds in 13 minutes, spending some of his time on Ibaka and Gasol. Anthony (27 points) and James (25 points) were named co-MVPs of the game.
If there was a lesson to be learned from this final exhibition, it is that although the Americans are vertically challenged – to put it politely – they are also a matchup nightmare for opposing big men who are unaccustomed to playing perimeter defense.
James plays some center for Team USA. Anthony plays some center. Love plays some center. Durant plays some 4.
All of them can drain it from deep.
All of them are playing with supreme confidence – something you could see when James found himself isolated at the top of the key against Gasol midway through the fourth quarter, got him to bite on a dribble-drive fake and then stepped back and drained a 3.
“I don’t know what people are saying. I know what I believe,” Scariolo said. “They are very, very aggressive defensively, and they are the best team in the world. There is no question about it. The biggest problem for the opponent is how to solve the dilemma (of defending the Americans’ smaller 4s and 5s on the perimeter).”
The Americans will not play another game until Sunday, when France will be the opponent in a game that will count.
Between now and then they will pack up for London, get their rain gear back out, march in the opening ceremony and squeeze in as much practice time as possible.
They learned in Barcelona that the Argentines (who they play a week from next Monday) are a team that will never quit, and this Spanish team, with Ibaka, has a height advantage that will only be a factor if Spain can feed the ball to those bigs deep in the low post.
But again, those bigs have to cover a lot of unfamiliar ground on the other end of the court. And on nights when the Americans are shooting the ball well, they are virtually unbeatable.
“Their athleticism and quickness makes up for the lack of size. Interior players are not used to guarding players 20 feet away from the basket, so it’s sort of a double-edged sword,” Gasol said. “You have to try to punish them at one end, then adjust at the other end. And they’re loaded, so you have to be alert at all times.”
The thing is, there are going to be nights when the 3-point shots aren’t falling. If that happens against Tunisia or Nigeria, it won’t matter. But if it happens in the knockout round, which begins Aug. 8, the Americans are capable of being beaten — and they will be the first ones to tell you as much.
But when they are locked in, as Anthony was in his new role as sixth man (the job Dwyane Wade held in Beijing), they are as fine of a team as America has put together since professionals started competing in basketball 20 years ago in this very same city.
In two weeks, maybe Anthony will be back to loving FIBA basketball the way he once did.
“I don’t like it better than NBA basketball. I play NBA basketball, that’s my career, that’s my life blood,” Anthony said. “But FIBA basketball allows me to play multiple positions and do a lot of different things out there on the basketball court than I do in the NBA. I’m in a different position, I play the 3, the 4, the 5. I don’t play the 5 back in the NBA. Over here, with these guys on the team, it’s more playing off of them, doing some dirty work, when the ball comes to you trying to knock down shots, rebounding. Most of the times I’m playing against 4s and 5s, and it’s a much more physical game than in the NBA. I won’t be playing the 5 in New York, I know that.
“But this whole experience, every time I come back and play USA basketball, my mindset is a lot different. The team-oriented atmosphere I bring back to my team, the focus I have, my conditioning, and carrying that into the regular season, it’s like I’m getting an early start. Look at what happened the year after we won the gold medal. In 2009 I had one of my best seasons with Denver and we went to the Western Conference finals. My body felt great, my mind felt great – and that’s something I keep in the back of my mind coming out of USA Basketball.”
As you can see, Anthony drifted pretty far ahead in answering that question.
The hardest part is still ahead, with the fatigue yet to set in, and the need to be at your best when you are most exhausted will have to be summoned and harnessed. But Anthony, James, Bryant and everyone else on this American team (with the exception of 11th man James Harden and 12th man Anthony Davis) has been though these competitions before, so the need to peak at the end, not the beginning, is something for which they are already prepared.
And judging from how they turned things around against Spain, they are ready to show the world just how good they are.
But we’re still a long ways away from the gold medal game, and you never know what might happen along the way.
Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has covered every version of Team USA since 1996, covering them at the Olympics in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing, as well as the World Championships in Indianapolis, Japan and Turkey. Follow him on Twitter.
