2008 Olympics Review

To get an idea of how dominant the 2008 USA Olympic basketball team was, let's look at the last eight Olympic semifinalists:

Record
2004 Argentina: 6-2
2004 Italy: 5-3
2004 USA: 5-3
2004 Lithuania: 6-2
2008 Lithuania: 5-3
2008 Argentina: 6-2
2008 Spain: 6-2
2008 USA: 8-0

10+ point wins, 20+ point wins, 30+ point wins
2004 Argentina: 2,1,0
2004 Italy: 2,1,1
2004 USA: 2,1,1
2004 Lithuania: 3,2,0
2008 Lithuania: 3,2,1
2008 Argentina: 5,1,0
2008 Spain: 5,1,1
2008 USA: 8,7,4

Scoring Margin:
2004 Argentina: +5.8
2004 Italy: +4.6
2004 USA: +4.6
2004 Lithuania: +7.1
2008 Lithuania: +4.3
2008 Argentina: +7.3
2008 Spain: +7
2008 USA: +27.9

In 2004, Argentina ended up on top of a heap that luckily didn't include the best team in the tournament, Spain. Argentina lost two games in group play, won another by one, and another by four. They won their quarterfinal game by five. In 2008 USA won their first seven games by at least 20 points, and were only challenged in the final in which they still put away Spain by double digits, 118-107.


After the failures of Team USA at the 2002 and 2006 World Championships and at the 2004 Olympics, it was obvious that there are problems with American basketball. To an extent, play is too selfish, too much emphasis is put on highlight dunks over fundamentals, there's too much one-on-one play, etc., and to an extent, non-American players are probably brought up in an environment where they're drilled in fundamentals and teamwork is glorified more than individual achievement. However, both the weaknesses of American players and the virtues of non-American ones were overstated.

Team USA's success started with defense (which surely NBA players can't excel at since it's not flashy, right?). Opponents shot 40.3% from the field, 29.9% from three, and averaged 10.6 assists and 19.3 turnovers. Only one team shot above 45% against Team USA, and that was the final, where Spain played out of their minds and shot 51.4% The 78.4 points per game average is inflated by the quick pace and abundance of possessions in USA games. Team USA on the other hand, shot 55% from the field, 37.7% from three (including 41.7% over the last five after a horrific start, and 13-28 in the final against the second best team in the tournament), and averaged 15.8 assists and 13.8 turnovers. The assists number is deceptively low because Team USA had a lot of one-on-zero fast breaks, and because opponents would force Team USA to go to the line instead of getting easy buckets. Team USA brushed off 2-3 zones for easy layups and wide open threes.

What about the other teams, who play collectively, unselfishly, and with full grasp of the fundamentals of basketball? Well, here's what I saw in my limited time watching non-USA teams: Greece setting multiple moving picks on pretty much every possession against Spain. Not just moving while there's contact with the defender, but leaning in the shoulders, hip checking, and giving the defender a little shove towards half court every single time. This is the fundamental basketball I keep hearing about? Lithuania being completely unable to solve the Spanish 2-3 zone that the USA obliterated twice. Greece forgetting how to run an offense in the fourth quarter of their quarterfinal game against Argentina, and instead, just standing around and passing the ball along the perimeter, begging the Argentines to step in and steal it, which they did a few times. Carlos Delfino chucking the ball like an LSU-era Pistol Pete against Team USA, shooting 7-19 (3-10 from 3), a lot of them the ugly kind of shots that barely hit the opposite side of the backboard. Spain shooting 31.5% from three for the tournament. Argentina shooting 6-23 from three against Team USA after shooting 4-21 in their last game against USA two years ago. That's 10-44 (22.7%) in their last two games. Can you imagine the blowhards' reactions if Team USA had clanked that many threes over two games, one a semifinal and the other for a bronze medal?

I'm not bringing these things up to insult foreign teams or to deny that weaknesses of Team USA and American basketball in general, but to say, hey, maybe the foreign teams aren't the paragons of fundamentals and teamwork they are sometimes made out to be, nor are NBA players the embodiment of everything wrong with basketball today.


Two rising young players were expected to make an impression at the Olympics and they both did just that.

Rudy Fernandez, 23, of Spain, will play for the Portland Trailblazers next year after having a breakout year at DKV Joventut in the Spanish ACB. He averaged 13.1 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists for Spain, and shot 47.3/.400/.792. He shot 7/13, 5/9, 3/3 in the final against USA for 22 points. He was actually drafted by the Suns in 2007 but was traded to the Blazers in exchange for cash. And no, "cash" isn't another player's name. The Suns gave up the guy who just lit up the Redeem Team, and who is already NBA-ready, for a tiny bit of money. His salary will be about a paltry $4.2 over four years. I guess management had to make room for Shaq's $40 million over two years. I will now blow my brains out.

Ricky Rubio, 17, also of Spain and of DKV Joventut, will play at least one more year in the ACB and the Euroleague since they qualified for this upcoming season. He averaged 4.8 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2.1 steals for Spain in only 18.3 minutes. Unfortunately, he shot 28% from the field and 2-12 from three for the tournament. But he has plenty of time to work on that. He was great court vision, and super quick hands and defensive anticipation. Two years ago (at age 16), he led the Euroleague in steals with 3.45 per game in only 18.3 minutes per game. I thought he played very well for a 17 year old, and is, barring injury, a surefire future NBA All-Star and Hall-of-Famer. His play in the tournament was underwhelming for me, though. While his long arms, quickness, and anticipation allowed him to disrupt offenses by getting in the passing lanes, he had difficulty staying between opposing point guards and the basket. In a half-court offense, his contributions consisted of standing five feet behind the key and making passes to players coming off of screens. He did what the offense called for, but he didn't show that he can create, finish around the rim, or shoot. Of course, he's only 17, so all these things will improve.

Some things I agree with: http://thepaintedarea.blogspot.com/2008/08/usa-basketball-all-stars-and-role.html
http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/the_sporting_blog/entry/view/11077/shoals_unlimited_olympics_proving_that_nbas_style_of_play_still_rules_the_hardwood#page_break

Olympics Pool Play Review

You can see all the scores and standings here and the statistical leaders here. I won't summarize pool play because it's all right there.

Biggest (positive) surprise: Tie. China and USA. China lost to Greece and the USA by 31 points two years ago, to Spain by 25 four years ago. This year, they lost to a much better USA team by 31 points, lost to a better Greece team by 14, and had a double-digit lead to blow in the fourth quarter against Spain. The home-court advantage (and officiating) helped, but they were not the pushovers they have been in the past. Team USA came in as the favorite, a little ahead of Spain, and little more distance between them and Greece, Argentina, Russia, and Lithuania. After a 21-point win against Angola (whom they should have beaten by 40 on a bad day and 60 on a good one), they played at 85% potential (still didn't shoot well) against Greece, winning by 23, then obliterated the second best team, Spain, by 37, then finished pool play with a 49-point win over a respectable German team.

Biggest disappointment: Russia. The defending Eurobasket champions beat lowly Iran in the first game, then lost their next four, losing out on a spot in the quarterfinals to Croatia and Australia.

What else have we learned?
Even though Lithuania won Group A over Argentina, I think Argentina is better. Argentina is like the Spurs- they coast through the regular season, then turn it on when the games really count, like when they went 3-2 (including a 1-point win) in Athens, only to end up at the top of the heap on the last day.

Team USA will won gold. Duh. They're number one in scoring (103 ppg) and number one in scoring defense (70.8 ppg) despite playing at a much faster pace than most teams. Despite putting a lot of emphasis on forcing turnovers, and contrary to Doug Collins' bemoaning of Team USA's "feast or famine" defense, the Americans allow the lowest field goal percentage by a 7.3% margin over the number two team (36.6% to Lithuania's 42.9%), and the lowest three-pointer percentage by a 6.4% margin (26.9% to China's 33.3%). Even when teams don't turn the ball over, they struggle to get good looks. The only defensive blemish is the relatively poor rebounding. Three teams have a better rebound margin than USA's +2.2: Spain (+9.6), Croatia (+6.6), and Greece (+4.8). Offensively, they've only been firing on all cylinders for the last two games, and firing on most cylinders in the third to last game.

Angola and Iran are as bad as we thought they were.

Quarterfinal predictions:
Argentina vs. Greece: Argentina in a close one.
USA vs. Australia: USA in a not close one.
Spain vs. Croatia: Spain by 10.
Lithuania vs. China: Lithuania by eight.

Semis:
USA vs. Argentina: USA by 22.
Spain vs. Lithuania: Spain by 6.

Bronze medal game: Argentina over Lithuania by 10, resulting in Argentina's overtaking of the number one FIBA ranking.

Finals: USA over Spain by 17.

USA vs. Russia, Australia

Whereas the first three exhibition opponents were easily pulverized by Team USA, the last two, Russia and Australia offered resistance to Team USA, and in doing so, gave us a glimpse into the weaknesses that may be the downfall of Team USA.

USA vs. Russia: The story of this game is that after the first quarter, the USA looked like they were going to cruise to another 30+ point victory, but Russia played an effective 2-3 zone and kept it close. After a 29-17 first quarter, Team USA outscored Russia 60-51 the rest of the way for an 89-68 win. It should be kept in mind that Russia are the reigning Eurobasket champions, beating Greece, Lithuania, and Spain along the way to the title last summer. Even though Spain beat Russia 91-56 back on July 20th, I'm going to attribute that to Russia's rustiness and working out a rotation more than Spain's overwhelming superiority, unless Spain has advanced that much in the last 12 months, or Russia has regressed that much. Judging by the way Russia played against the USA, I doubt Spain beat that Russia by 35.

Anyway, Russia is good, and we should already know that Team USA isn't going to beat run everyone out of the gym. I would take a 21-point win over Russia any day of the week. That game was certainly no cause for panic, but it did raise some concerns. Even though Team USA's offense looked awful, and very similar to the last few years' versions, i.e. little ball movement, or player movement away from the ball, it was actually pretty effective, thanks mostly to Deron Williams' poking holes through the zone (9 assists, 0 turnovers), and a little to Kobe for keeping the USA ahead when Russia was making it close. Over the last three quarters, in a mostly half-court game, USA shot 57% from the field, and made four of eight three-pointers and eight of 12 free throws. They also had 14 assists and 10 turnovers, while forcing only 12 turnovers from Russia (in other words, few fastbreaks). The relative lack of offensive production had more to do with the slower pace of the game than with an ineffective offense. The defense was fine, too. Russia only shot 39.7% from the field, and 4-17 from three (23.5%). The real reason why the game was so close was the lack of control of the defensive boards. Russia had 12 offensive boards and won the overall rebounding battle 43-35, thanks in large part to Carlos Boozer, Dwight Howard, and Chris Bosh combining for one rebound in 38 minutes. Bottom line, they killed Russia, a legitimate medal contender by a lot. If they play every game like they did, would they win gold? Probably. If the three big men can avoid being quite so invisible on the boards, the answer would change to "definitely."

USA vs. Australia: Australia is not very good. They will most likely be competing with Croatia for fourth place in Group A and a chance to face the winner of Group B (USA or Spain) in the quarterfinals. The 2006 team beat Australia 113-73 in the round of 16. The 2004 team beat Australia 89-79. However, the "Redeem Team" was only leading 46-42 early in the third quarter after leading 44-29 at halftime. They pulled out an ugly 87-76 win. Again, the offense involved too much dribbling, too much isolation, and too little movement of players and of the ball. While the Americans only shot 3-18 from three, a lot of the shots looked really good leaving their hands. They also shot 20-33 (60.6%) from the free throw line, thanks to Dwight Howard's pathetic 0-fer-6. Look at it this way. Let's say USA had shot 6-18 from three instead (which is still comfortably below their 40% over the five games). Suddenly, it turns into a 96-76 win, which is a certified ass-whooping. I know that's a big if, and that they don't allow mulligans when the real games start, but it's comforting that the team's floor is such that they can not throw the ball in the ocean and still score 87 points. The defense, on the other hand, was not as comforting. Australia, who were playing without Andrew Bogut, shot 47.5 percent from the field, and made eight of 20 threes. If the USA plays like this in the real tournament, they will not win gold.

It's now clearer than ever that Team USA will not steamroll their opponents to the gold medal. However, there are a few bright spots to be taken away from the last two exhibitions. 1) These games were a wake-up call. The games will not be a series of uncontested alley-oops and one-on-zero fastbreaks. 2) Contrary to the claims of some, Team USA does in fact have an effective half-court offense. It can be ugly and it can struggle at times, but every team has lulls where they struggle to score, and teams don't get extra points for playing beautiful basketball. 3) Much of the ugliness of the Australia game can be attributed to the fact that they didn't practice the day before the game. A lot of times, especially in the third quarter, Australia was running the simple kind of plays that would have been stopped if the USA was prepared and had studied the scouting reports, which they probably will do in the real games. I consider it like the annual UA pre-Christmas game, when the team isn't really itself and so loses a game they should win or badly loses a game that should at least be close. If USA meets Australia in the medal round, I highly doubt Australia keeps it within 11 (or 20, for that matter). 4) When opponents made runs to make a game close, USA never panicked and calmly rebuilt the lead. When Lithuania cut 17-point half-time deficit to 9 points with a bunch of early third quarter threes, USA made some adjustments and went on a 14-3 run that put them ahead 75-55. When Russia was down just 10 with a few minutes left in the third, USA went on a 10-0 run that effectively put the game away. When Australia cut a 15-point half-time deficit to four points in the third quarter, USA went on a 7-2 mini-run, eventually building the lead to 16 with two minutes left in the game, before Australia whittled the final deficit to 11. On past teams, players responded to adversity with hero's complexes (2002), rattled confidence (2006), or plain old awfulness (2004). The leadership on this team raises the floor of this team and makes the team less vulnerable.

USA vs. Turkey and USA vs. Lithuania

While Canada sucks at basketball, Turkey is almost respectable, and Lithuania is probably one of the top six teams in the Olympics. Therefore, these two games revealed more about Team USA than the Canada game.

USA vs. Turkey:
Let's start out by examining how good Turkey is. In the 2007 and 2005 Eurobasket Championships, they went a combined 2-8, with the two wins coming against the Czech Republic in 2007 and Bulgaria in overtime in 2005. Last year's team suffered a 17-point loss to Lithuania, a 30-point loss to Germany, a 15-point loss to Slovenia, and a 21-point loss to France. At the 2006 WBC, they finished fifth behind Spain, Greece, USA, and Argentina, which looks impressive until you realize their group play consisted of two-point wins over Lithuania and Brazil, and a mere seven-point win over Qatar (who are exactly as good at basketball as you'd think). They lost to Argentina 83-58 in the quarterfinals. Team USA should win by 35.

How did Team USA do in the three criteria I mentioned in the USA vs. Canada post?
Solid Defense: F for the first quarter, A for the last three. USA started with the too-much-of-the-court pressure instead of locking down the last third of the court, and as a result, Turkey scored 30 first quarter points. When the Americans played a less risky defense over the last three quarters, Turkey scored 7, 22, and 23 points.

Protecting the rim and the defensive glass: D. Allowing 16 offensive rebounds is not very impressive. Luckily, Turkey didn't seem to capitalize with putbacks. Preventing easy buckets and controlling the backboards are usually a foundation for any great team, but I think this team could probably win by an average of 25 points a game without outrebounding their opponents. Not that they'd want to. Still, at the 2007 Olympic Qualifier, they only outrebounded opponents by an average of 2.9 per game, but outscored them by an average of 39.5 points per game. Granted, the Olympic field is going to be tougher than the Olympic Qualifier field, but obviously, this team's success doesn't depend on dominating the glass. Being able to outrebound teams would put less pressure on the other aspects of the game.

Patient and efficient offense: A. Except for the 17 turnovers, most of which were from trying to beat a zone with one pass instead of multiple passes, USA was excellent on offense. Six of 14 from three, 69.5% shooting overall, 26 of 32 free throws.

Overall: B. Really, the only available grades for this team are A and F. I'm not going to say there aren't moral victories in sports, but those usually involve things like overachieving, enjoying the unselfishness and teamwork, and generally reaching their full potential but just not being able to win against a better team. If USA plays reasonably near their potential, they will win. Therefore, anything less than a gold medal gets an F. No offense to the other teams, but the Gold medal is in USA's hands unless they give it away. Would Team USA win gold if they played every game like they did against Turkey? Maybe not, but the main weakness in this game was addressed by Coach K in the post-game press conference: "I think we’ve realized that we’re not going to blow a team out in the first quarter and just continue to play solid defensively and try and wear a team down. What we are coming off the bench with – are Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and etcetera. We have guys who can come in and wear a team down. Once we realize it’s not going to happen in the first quarter, but towards the middle of the second quarter and then towards the end of the third quarter where we can break the game open and that’s what we did. We allowed them to get into a little comfort zone because we tried to blow them out too fast." If they play every game like they did in last three quarters, which is more likely than playing like they did in the first quarter, they will win gold.


USA vs. Lithuania:
How good is Lithuania? Lithuania is probably somewhere between fourth and sixth best among teams in the Olympics this year. I have Russia, Greece, and them in fourth through sixth, but I haven't decided on the order. At the 2007 Eurobasket, they went undefeated until the semifinals, where they lost to eventual champion Russia 86-74, then beat Greece 78-69 for bronze. At the 2006 World Basketball Championship, they went 3-2 in their group, with a two point loss to Turkey, and an overtime loss to Greece. They actually led the group in scoring margin, but Greece (5-0) and Turkey (4-1) each had better records. After sqeezing by Italy in the round of sixteen, they lost to Spain 89-67. At the 2005 Eurobasket, they finished in fifth place with a 5-1 record. A week ago, they lost an exhibition match against Spain 91-66. The only teams I can say with certainty are better than Lithuania are Argentina, Spain, and USA. USA should win by 30.

Solid defense: B+. Team USA finally stopped the stupid press and instead tried to just plain shut down Lithuania. There were a few instances when Lithuania got easy buckets off the pick-and-roll even though pick-and-roll defense was supposed to be a point of emphasis in training camp after the Greece debacle. Also, occasionally, shooters were not closed out on, letting Lithuania shoot 55% from three (12-22). Lastly, USA committed way too many stupid fouls. Lithuania made 22 of 27 free throws.

Protecting the rim and the defensive glass: B. Eleven offensive rebounds for Lithuania and a 37-39 overall disadvantage for Team USA.

Patient and efficient offense: Thirty-four assists, 11 turnovers. Sixty-four percent shooting, 44 percent from three. They did struggle a little with the 2-3 zone, but Deron Williams was able to penetrate and do whatever he wanted inside. Importantly, they cut down on turnovers this game. The offense for this team is so good. They get so many easy baskets, especially in transition. It remains to be seen how they will do against a team with players who can handle half-court pressure, and are smart enough to send a few guys back in transition.

Overall: A. If they play every game like they played against Lithuania, they would win a gold medal.