The Official USA vs Brazil Game Thread

[TheOUTLAW]

To be honest, other than Durant the Redeem team just flat out had better scorers (players) than this team. Of course they are going to have a harder time playing. I do however think only folks in the US would be upset about a 2 point win against a good Brazil team.

[Sedale Threatt]

It's the standards. It's the same thing with Brazil's national football team. If they win in anything less than spectacular fashion, they might as well have lost to some. Hell, some of their fans don't even recognize the 94 WC title because it was a semi-defensive team. Conversely, their 82 team is revered, despite losing, because they played with so much flair.

[Rerisen]

To be honest, other than Durant the Redeem team just flat out had better scorers (players) than this team. Of course they are going to have a harder time playing. I do however think only folks in the US would be upset about a 2 point win against a good Brazil team.

Pretty much. No idea why people are shocked that games will be close. It's never going to be 1992 again.

We had LeBron, Wade, Melo, Paul and Howard in 2006 and still lost. The program has progressed since then preparation wise, but we still aren't going to dominate every night.

I think these close games are good to have now in the preliminary round actually. Help prepare the team for adversity, and maybe so that in the next round, they can turn it around before they get behind 6 or 8 like they did tonight.

[TheOUTLAW]

This game had just about everything that it takes for the US to lose. They have a bad quarter and played against a hot shooting team (at least in the first half). They still won. The 2008 eight team had marquee scorers in Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Carmelo and Bosh where even if 3 of them went cold for a period they still had one that could carry the load. This team really only has Durant.

[dolphinatik]

Us will always get lucky if other teams are not brining their best. This is clearly not the best US team or the best Brazil team. We were lucky to get the win. Barbosa was big on D and ran out of steam at the end... good for him though.

Clearly a Dwight Howard Lebron Wade CP3 Mello would destroy this competition. This tourney is really showing the value of Durant though and good for him. With the last team they had Mello, Kobe, Wade and LEbron that could carry the load. Obviously Wade came through and did the heavy lifting. But this time if anything happens to Durant its a wrap for the US.

[phx#7]

I do however think only folks in the US would be upset about a 2 point win against a good Brazil team.

Only because whenever the US doesn't completely dominate we never hear the end of it. They beat Spain by double figures to win gold in '08 and all anyone ever says it how close the game was because they didn't humiliate Spain by 30+ like in the first match up.

[Sedale Threatt]

This game had just about everything that it takes for the US to lose. They have a bad quarter and played against a hot shooting team (at least in the first half). They still won

Fine. I don't really see anyone going nuts, as opposed to discussing the makeup of the team. Nothing wrong with that, is there? At the same time, why on Earth should we get excited about playing below standard -- I'm sure everyone can agree with that -- and struggling to beat a team we're better than?

[mopper8]

I think Billups calls for those PNR plays. I'm not sure if calls are coming from the bench. Pretty much since the start of camp most of the time when Billups or before Rondo was at the top of the key a big was coming to set a pick.

Maybe he is. I would run it with Rose and Durant though. They did a couple times this game and it created a shot every time. You are either going to get a three for Durant, or Rose with an easy drive or mid-range that he can easily knock down.

Problem is, when I watched at least, when they ran PnR with Durant as the screener, they got pretty mediocre screens out of it and not much came of it. One of those lead to Rose dribbling into 3 defenders and turning the ball over with ~1:30 left in the game. Not a great possession.

[richboy]

Perhaps. Teams could trap it though with a third player and force Rose to find the open man.

I bet we would burn them a lot before they made the adjustment. Even at that point, we would be making their defense work in a way far more complex than right now where they only have to worry about 1 guy on most of our possessions.

I think Coach K might be saving some of that for the medal round though. That we went to it late in the Spain game might have been a slight revealing that we had to pull out.

Well I can't buy we are saving things. If he has plays to help blow the game open then run them instead of play Durant 40 minutes. We have run some PNR with Rose and outside of the two plays in Spain I don't think we have had much success. Maybe they can get something going against Iran. The better teams will play team USA for the pass. Knowing our guards are more likely to just stop dribbling. Dribble into traffic. Just make a really bad pass.

[C.Delfino]

(...)gold in '08 and all anyone ever says it how close the game was because they didn't humiliate Spain by 30+ like in the first match up.

No, people talk about that game, because it was a 4 point game with 2 minutes to go, then Wade and Kobe iced it. A 4 point game with 2 minutes to go is pretty close in my opinion.

[TrueRain]

As close as that Spain game, I never really worried about losing it because of Kobe and Wade. With this team, I'm just not confident in it

[C.Delfino]

As close as that Spain game, I never really worried about losing it because of Kobe and Wade. With this team, I'm just not confident in it

Completely agree on the first count. When you have the two best closers in the world being up by more than one possession is a pretty good spot.

[cloudXXI]

Some of you are telling USA is the B Team, it´s true. In fact, it´s a B championiship.

Nowitzki, Yao, Pau, Manu..for their national teams is like Lakers without Kobe.

There are no excuses for anyone, the team wins, deserves to win.

Maybe USA is not playing great, but you are winning the close games (Spain, Brazil) and that´s very important in FIBA tournaments.

[Calvin Klein]

As close as that Spain game, I never really worried about losing it because of Kobe and Wade. With this team, I'm just not confident in it

Completely agree on the first count. When you have the two best closers in the world being up by more than one possession is a pretty good spot.

Your avatar is distracting me.

[MaxRider]

i don't even consider this Team USA as B team
they are more like C team

other than Durant, Billups, Rose, and Granger
the rest are not all-star
Rose made it because weak guards in the East

A team will have Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Dwight, CP3, Melo, Garnett (all-star starters)
B team will have Durant, Granger, Pierce, Amare, Bosh, Deron (all-star reserves)
C team will have Iguodala, Gay (all-star caliber players)

[TheOUTLAW]

To be honest, I wasn't really worried about this game until all the turnovers and then Billups attempting to be the go to player.

[borisadmin]

Team USA has no chemistry at all. You have to put the blame on Coach K. I know that he's a great college coach, but running isolation plays every time down court is inexcusable. I think an NBA coach like Adelman, Sloan, Pop, or Phil Jackson would have been much better.

Agreed. There's very little cohesion there, it's almost like he's trying to assert himself or prove himself.

BTW, Splitter is looking like the goods to me. Great defender, and was impressed with his footwork on the offensive end for a 7-footer.

[G35]

I do think this is an overreaction from the fans.

They did win the game. So if they are only a one on one team, that doesn't play defense what does that make everyone else? It is ridiculously high standards that everyone has for team USA. They have to play every exhibition, friendly or any game as if it was game 7 of the NBA finals.

When the US blows a team out its maybe a 8 or 9 page thread. They ALMOST lose and we get to 30+ pages. If I were Coach K the first thing I would tell the team is that there is no pleasing anyone. The international fans are going to hate because you aren't the first dream team and they want to beat Team USA. The American fans aren't going to like you because:

A. You aren't the dream team that everyone loved (even though I don't remember them running a whole lot of sets and playing team basketball either. They just won by 40 because int'l bball sucked back then.)
B. You aren't the redeem team with Kobe, Wade and Lebron
C. You won't win every game by 25+ points so the critics will be all over you for not playing the right way. Nothing will satisfy the American public so don't even bother. They're gonna be like women.

Every team in history has lapses. No team is going to play a perfect team game every time out. Believe it or not but the 96 Bulls, 86 Celtics, 87 Lakers, etc etc all played less than stellar at times also.

Winning is all that matters. If they don't win the gold then yeah bitch and complain but until then I thought everyone was complaining that they wanted to see a competitiive game. Well we got that, be happy we have something to watch besides pre season football....