Lots of Dunks, Lots of Threes, USA Blows Out Angola

Team USA scored 120 points in 40 minutes, blowing away puny Angola in the first round of elimination play.

But this is the United States of Amnesia we’re talking about, and even one afternoon of loose play, obscene dunks and egoistic chuckles from the bench have the potential to screw up whatever reality check the narrow victory over Brazil offered. 

So no, blowing out Angola in the first round of the FIBA tournament was not a good thing. Whatever Angola offered in competition did nothing to prepare Team USA for the large, well-oiled machines of Greece, Spain and Lithuania.

   

According to US guard Stephen Curry, Angola is more of a ‘one-on-one team’, which is just a clever euphuism for saying Angola has virtually no offense. At one-on-one, the Americans are hands down the best in the world, but FIBA isn’t about individualism, it’s about team play. The US needs to get used to playing against teams that move the ball extremely well, not teams like Angola who scramble for every play.  Team USA has now won its last three games by an average of 43 points and might be getting over-overconfident again. 

The good news is Billups finally broke out of his 3-point shooting slump hitting 5 out 7 threes.  The US will now face Russia in the quarter final match on Thursday. 

Russia is something of an odd team coached by David Platt, an American/Israeli citizen who grew up in Massachusetts and went to Princeton. He’s been hocking his coaching trade on European basketball courts for the last two decades.  

And revving up for the game on Thursday he’s pulling some weasely tricks, even going so far as dropping media bombs claiming that the controversial and much rigged 1972 Munich Olympic Gold Medal game  in which the Soviet Union beat the US was legitimate. Everyone knows nothing in communist Russia was legitimate, especially that game. But Russia is a huge underdog and anything that can even potentially distract the Americans from their game is worth a try. 

Information on the Russian team is fairly grey. The country’s best 3-point shooter is Sergei Monia who played in the league long enough to have a few cigarettes with the Portland Trailblazers a couple of years ago. Other big guns include Timofey Mozgov who’s playing with the Knicks next season and Sasha Kaun who played for the Jayhawks in Kansas last year. The rest of the team is like most of the stuff that comes out of Russia; weird, vague and potentially dangerous. 

One thing that’s clear about Team Russia tough  is that they’re big, very big. Mozgov is afull five inches tallers than the US’s 6-10 starting center Lamar Odom. Russian power forward Andrey Vorontsevich is at least four inches taller than his US counterpart Andre Iguodala. These guys aren’t just big; they’re physical, aggressive and like most Eastern European teams can shoot the ball extremely well. With an average age of only 23, Team USA is young and Russia will try to stay close long enough to force them into panic mode.  

Kevin Durrant should be an MVP contender for the next decade or so. With his size and speed, he’s excellent at getting to the free throw line; able to shoot around 90% there, he’s deadly. And with help from fellow leader Billups, look for the US to pull out with at least a 10 point victory.