Team USA v. Argentina

I had the chance to catch the Team USA/Argentina basketball game last night (this morning, really, since it was on starting at 12:01 am). Two observations from the game:

• Luis Scola is good. Sure, he was being guarded by small forwards (Tayshaun Prince, Carmelo Anthony), but Team USA really had no answer for him. The only person who stopped him in the game was himself--he picked up some silly fouls early so his playing time was severely limited. It was considered a little puzzling when San Antonio traded his rights to the Rockets earlier this summer for basically nothing. Now, having seen him play, I'd call it downright baffling.
• Team USA can't take care of its defensive boards. I couldn't find the stats from the game, but I remember at halftime last night Argentina was winning the rebounding battle 20-15, despite shooting 38% from the floor (and with Team USA shooting about 60%). So despite having significantly fewer defensive rebounds available to them (the easier kind to grab), Argentina was winning the rebounding battle. I would love to know what Team USA's defensive rebounding rate (DRR) was last night. I can't imagine it was very good. Against full strength teams at the Olympics, this sort of poor performance on the defensive glass could be a real problem.

Team USA continues to roll

I'm packing and traveling for the next couple of weeks, so my posting schedule will probably be a bit sporadic and my posts will probably fall on the lighter side of things.

I had a chance to watch two of Team USA's games this weekend. Despite the blow-out victories, I think Team USA might be in for some real problems when the Olympics (and the better international teams) roll around. The game against Brazil was particularly worrisome, even though the game turned into a demolition derby. In the first quarter, Brazil was able to stay close simply because its guards didn't turn the ball over in the face of Team USA's defensive pressure. They had fairly good success in the half-court (at half-time, I think Brazil was shooting just about 50% from the field), and Team USA was getting fewer run-outs. Team USA's offense was still spectacular (I've been particularly impressed by Michael Redd--he can shoot!), and against these teams that is more than enough, but I'm worried that won't be the case against some of the European teams (or Argentina when they have their full complement). Carmelo Anthony's defense against other power forwards is a continuing issue. He's getting plaudits for his offensive play (and rightfully so), but these commentators seem to be missing the fact that his defense is costing Team USA. There was a sequence in last night's game against Brazil that really illustrated this point. Twice in a row, Team USA's defense had Brazil up against the shot-clock when Carmelo's man drove right at him, encountering only token resistance, to score. If Team USA is going to win the Olympics, Carmelo is going to need to make stops in those situations. I know he's only doing it in garbage time, but I'm glad Coach K is playing some line-ups with two big men together. I think when the real tournament comes around, that sort of line-up is going to be vital to Team USA's ultimate success.

Dalembert puts up good stats

Unsurprisingly, Team USA put a shellacking on Venezuela last night. The final score was 112-69, and by all accounts Team USA was never really challenged after a poor shooting first quarter. Yeah, Team USA! This game doesn't really tell us much about how good Team USA actually is, but it's still always nice to get a victory.

In more important news (for Sixers fans, at any rate), it also appears that Samuel Dalembert had a good game for Team Canada. At the very least, he had a very nice boxscore line: 10 points (on 4-5 shooting), 10 rebounds, and 2 blocks in 24 minutes. I didn't see the game, but based solely on the boxscore I'm curious to know why Dalembert only played 24 minutes (out of a possible 40). Especially considering that no one else on Team Canada grabbed more than 3 rebounds, I would have thought that Dalembert would have played more. Still, Team Canada played Brazil (considered the 2nd best team in the tournament) tough (see the last item for a very brief description of the game) before finally losing 75-67. If this game is indicative of things to come, then perhaps Canada will make some noise in this tournament despite the absence of Steve Nash.

[Update: It appears that the reason Dalembert didn't play more was because of early foul trouble.]