OT: USA Men's Basketball vs Argentina right now on NBCSN
Team USA up 33-19 after the first quarter. Playing fast, aggressive, and with a clear skill advantage. Looks like they're figuring it out now after 2 straight losses.
They were up yesterday at half against Australia and fell apart from there on out, we'll see what happens today but they have issues.
Keep in mind that this isn’t even the complete U.S. team.
My fear is that Booker, Middleton, and Holiday don't really address their biggest issues, but Middleton and Holiday should help defensively
I hope that you are correct and they are figuring out how to play, and win, together.
With this team, I don't think it's ever going to be about chemistry or style of play. It's going to be about not having a bad shooting game, while giving more than a preseason-level effort on defense and on the boards. With guys like Dame, Durant, Beal, Lavine, Tatum, Booker (eventually) you just hope that at least one of them is on fire each game. And there will be games where a few are on fire, and it'll look incredible. But with all those scorers, there isn't much to fall back on in terms of defense or locking down the paint to get through the times when shots aren't falling. It's more of a Nets or old Dantoni Rockets type of team, especially without elite two-way guys (who can also rebound) like Bron, PG, Kawhi, AD, Butler.
Not an expert, but the US team appears to have a plan on both ends tonight.
Helps when the opposition is rolling out 41 year old Luis Scola at center. Nigeria and Australia beat us up on the glass. We're crushing Argentina on the boards, and Bam is rim-running Scola to exhaustion. Bam's the one guy on the roster who will give you everything he has (and Jrue when he arrives).
It seems like just yesterday that Argentina was an absolute problem in international games with Manu, Scola, Nocioni, and Carlos Delfino taking gold in the olympics and being a top 3 team every FIBA/Olympic tournament for about a solid decade there.
Yeah, I feel like Argentina just doesn't have the horses to race with Team USA.
Fool's gold. They won't medal.
Apparently the dreary weather in Russia negatively impacts the mental health of even the heartiest Russian.
And just exactly were you, Vlad, on Sept 10 1972? Let's finally get to the bottom of this:
Well, a much needed 108-80 victory.
Taking care of business.