Olympics Day 2: Spanish Comeback & Team USA Rout

The Raptor Core is back again to review Day 2 of the Olympic basketball tournament in Beijing, with games that took place on Tuesday morning. Here are the results of the day’s games (two of which happened late Monday night in the Eastern time zone):

Lithuania def. Iran (99-67)

Croatia def. Russia (85-78 )

Greece def. Germany (87-64)

Spain def. China (85-75)

United States def. Angola (97-76)

Argentina def. Australia (85-68 )

None of the outcomes really surprise me except for maybe Russia losing to Croatia. However, the way one of the games went down was downright shocking to me.

Recap: Spain Gets A Scare

I fully expected the Spanish national team to come into this game and win by about 20 points or so but they were in total disarray in the first half. It was my first real opportunity to see guys like Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez and Ricky Rubio play meaningful basketball so I was very excited about it. I think all of them were impressive throughout the game at one point or another – especially the latter two players. Without Fernandez, China would’ve pulled off the upset and without Rubio, the comeback from down 15 early in the second half would’ve been a lot harder. My impressions of both of those players have skyrocketed after seeing them play and Portland is lucky to have Fernandez next season. They really are stockpiling some of the best young talent in the NBA to complement each other down the road. Pau Gasol was also solid, which was to be expected.

This game was full of surprises, though. Jose Calderon didn’t start the game for Spain for some odd reason and I think their head coach has mild brain damage. If people thought Sam Mitchell’s substitution patterns have been erratic in the past, they’d be pulling their hair out watching this guy work. He took Gasol and Fernandez out during a crucial period at the end of the game with less than three minutes left, which I couldn’t understand. He went with a different starting line-up from the one that played the first game against Greece. He subbed in and out so often, the idea of doing it to keep guys ‘fresh’ was a little stupid. The game is already only 40 minutes long and these are well-conditioned athletes – it really wasn’t necessary for such a deep team to be subbing so frequently. Spain played almost as badly as they possibly could’ve played with turnovers, bad shots, terrible decisions and poor defense. China was up to the challenge early and even during some of the third quarter.

The scary thing for opposing teams is that Spain was able to flip the switch and the game went right into their favour. Yao Ming fouling out had something to do with that, as well as his unwillingness to be more assertive and aggressive in crunch time but Spain’s defense was still too much to handle. China is a team that functions on Yao Ming inside with a lot of outside shooting and once it gets to the late stages of the game, their jumpers lose the legs and they shoot themselves out of it. It was an admirable effort and now their backs are against the wall because they probably need to win at least two of their next three group play games to advance to the quarterfinals. Four teams will be eliminated after the August 18 games have been played and it’d be a shame if the host nation was one of those victims. Angola and Iran will undoubtedly take two of those spots home.

Here are some random thoughts on players from this game:

Yao Ming: Played hard yet again, got passive in the fourth quarter and not all of it was due to the defense

Pau Gasol: Solid as a rock inside for Spain; he knows what needs to be done

Marc Gasol: Very active and multi-talented; willing to do all the intangible things

Ricky Rubio: Raw and very scary; his quickness and ball pressure skills are extraordinary – he’s a terror

Rudy Fernandez: Capable scorer; very versatile inside and outside; active in all facets of the game

Jose Calderon: Very disappointing; poor decisions at times and lackluster showing so far

That’s it for the China/Spain game. It was definitely exciting because it went back and forth for a while in the second half and it wasn’t clear who would win till the last minute or so of regulation when Spain really got the momentum going their way. It’s great to have the host nation involved in such exciting and entertaining games. Their players are trying hard – they just don’t have the talent to compete with these superpowers.

Recap: USA Routs Angola

I didn’t expect to see anything meaningful develop in this game and nothing really did. There isn’t any great storyline to discuss like the China/Spain game but Team USA still looked primed and ready. They didn’t follow the blueprint they’ve had since the pre-Olympic exhibition tour where the game is close or in the opponent’s favour in the first quarter and then they take over and squash them in the middle frames. Angola was so overmatched; they were already down 11 points after the first quarter. That ballooned to 17 points at halftime and 28 by the time the fourth quarter was ready to begin. Their turnovers and overall sloppiness made this fun to watch until the last frame, where things got exceptionally ugly. This is definitely the easiest and probably least entertaining win Team USA will have in these Olympics. The true tests are coming up in the next few days. I liked that there were some of the Angolan players that didn’t back down at all to the physical test of playing the Americans – one guy even stepped up to Dwight Howard, which is admirable of any mortal. Angola failed to provide any meaningful resistance and no one expected them to so this game went as it should have.

Observations:

1. Carmelo Anthony Produces

I was pretty critical of Melo after the game against China but I probably jumped the gun on my assessment. He hasn’t been anywhere near the player he was last summer for Team USA but he had a good showing yesterday. I hope that he can do that against the teams like Spain, Greece and Argentina when the time comes to play them. It’s one thing to do it against them and another entirely to school Angolan defenders.

2. Dwight Howard Bounces Back

D12 had a very economical game against Angola: 14 points on 6-for-6 shooting, 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 2 blocks in just 15 minutes. They didn’t have anyone physically imposing enough to give him any kind of resistance. I’m not expecting anyone to be strong enough to handle Dwight and dominate him in that way but China was good at swarming him and they had Yao inside to contest shots. Not so against Angola. Again, like Melo, it’s nice to annihilate the interior defense of the second worst team in Beijing – can he do it against Pau Gasol and the Spanish defense?

3. Jason Kidd Contributes

Again, J-Kidd didn’t take one shot but he did contribute with 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals in 15 minutes. You can’t complain about those numbers at all for a point guard – especially at Kidd’s age. I’m hoping we see slightly higher assist totals against the better teams but he’ll probably stay at that level of playing time while we see a slight bump for Chris Paul and Deron Williams in the backcourt. They seem to play well together when they’re on the court at the same time.

4. Kobe Bryant Continues To Shoot

I realize the Black Mamba is the greatest basketball player on the planet right now but why the hell does he shoot so many three pointers? He took seven against China, making one. Against Angola, he took a whopping EIGHT and failed to convert any of them. That’s eight three-point attempts out of 13 field goal attempts in all, for 8 points. Talk about being a volume shooter. He had more attempts than points. So in two games, he’s taken 15 and made one – gotta love it. Team USA missed 30 shots in this game and Kobe had about a third of those misses all on his own. I’m not hating on him but he needs to rein in that shot selection because it just won’t be good enough against the better teams. I’m harping on that with every single player but it’s the truth. Nothing can be taken for granted on this stage.

5. Dwyane Wade Is A Beast

What more can you say? 19 points on 6-for-8 shooting, 5 rebounds and 1 steal in 16 minutes off the bench. He’s averaging a point per minute in this tournament if I’m not mistaken, which is insane. D-Wade is definitely back to being his old, explosive self – he might even be better than he was before from some of the moves I’m seeing. Then again, the opposition is making everyone look a bit better. We’ll see how he looks in November against NBA competition but it’s exciting as a fan of his to see him back and healthy.

6. Everyone Gets Burn

I saw this coming since they were playing Angola but everyone on Team USA got some significant playing time. No one played fewer than Carlos Boozer’s 11 minutes, which is very reasonable in a 40-minute game. Tayshaun Prince finally got some shot attempts; Boozer got to do his thing more; Deron, CP3, Chris Bosh and Michael Redd all got to take some shots so it was good. I don’t expect to see Boozer or Prince on the floor much in the next two games, though, unless there’s foul trouble.

The CB4 Radar

I wasn’t all that blown away by Bosh’s performance against Angola. I thought he’d get more playing time than he did and maybe some more shot opportunities. He actually got a traditional post-up on the block in the first half, which he converted into a score but that was about it. He had to work hard for everything else he got, as usual. There’s not much to comment on here – he was tied for fifth on the team in scoring with Kobe Bryant at 8 points. I want to see him do big things against Greece on Thursday morning when they play their next game. His defense was still there, he was talking (you could hear him yelling on the TV broadcast), his shot selection was pretty good except for the turnaround he missed, which I’m sure Coach K didn’t mind since it’s a rare mistake he’s made.

That’s all for this entry! I’ll be back on Thursday night or Friday afternoon with my third entry, covering Day 3 of the Olympic basketball tournament in Beijing! By the way, I loved Jay Triano as the analyst for TSN covering those two games Tuesday morning. I think he did a great job and Paul Romanuk isn’t my number one choice for a baskeball play-by-play man but he does try and he’s knowledgeable for the most part. Until next time..

-Mark R.

[The Raptor Core]