USA Basketball Future Recap: USA 102, China 82

Jason Kidd walks off the court smiling, reminding everyone that he is still undefeated in international play.

The USA team defeated Team China 102-82 in front of a record setting crowd in the first basketball game played in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Yao Ming, who had 23 points and 12 rebounds, still has not beaten Team USA in international play.

Carmelo Anthony led all scorers with 25 points. He also recorded eight rebounds and two steals.

Team USA came out cold in the first 10 minutes of the first half, shooting only 5/18 and making zero three-pointers. Kidd made things worse by handing out five turnovers on five overthrown lob passes.

Coach K  immediately took Kidd out and replaced him with Chris Paul for the rest of the half. Kidd, who was still holding his head high, reminded the bench that he was undefeated in international play and not to worry.

Michael Redd, who replaced Dwyane Wade around the 13-minute mark, did not help either. Redd took six three-pointers within a two minute span, missing all of them.

Luckily for team USA, they were playing China and not Argentina, Spain, or Greece, or else they would have been in a lot of trouble. By the time Redd was taken out of the game with 11 minutes to go in the half, USA was up 28-20.

Many critics were concerned with the fact that Team USA only brought three true big men into the Olympics. Team China started three seven-footers on their team—Wang ZhiZhi, Yi Jianlian, and Ming.

It started to look like a huge height advantage for China, but Dwight Howard quickly reminded everyone that his shoulders were as big as China’s three big men put together.

Howard was one of the main reasons USA could maintain its lead in the first half while the rest of the team shot horrendously. Howard had 15 points and eight rebounds in the first half and finished the game with 21 points and 17 rebounds.

“Wow, I didn’t know Wang ZhiZhi was good enough to play on the Chinese national team. When we played together on the Heat, I thought he was Japanese the whole time…and sucked,” Wade surprisingly mentioned to Carlos Boozer while sitting on the bench.

Wang was China’s second leading scorer and rebounder with 19 points, seven rebounds, and five assists. Wang wowed fans and astonished team USA with his three-point shooting and pinpoint passing.

Wang, once an NBA player, could not make the transition into NBA play but has a great deal of international success. His international stats almost quadruple his NBA statistics.

With 5:26 to go in the first half, Tayshuan Prince had an unexpected play.

Prince, who played eight minutes in the first half, had not touched the ball yet. He even begged Paul to pass him the ball once, but was quickly turned down when Kobe Bryant walked by.

Up 46-32, Prince finally got the ball on an inbound play under the basket when he inbounded the ball off of Yao’s back and quickly retrieved the ball and scored. Prince was then substituted out of the game for LeBron James.

“I took Prince out because that’s not what we want him to do,” Coach K told reporters after the game. “We put Prince on the team to play defense and pass the ball, not to score.”

Team USA took a 56-38 lead heading into the second half.

The Americans started the second half with Redd on the court, replacing Wade, who had aggravated his shoulder when he ran into teammate Howard.

This time, Redd had a different plan. Discouraged from all his missed shots in the first half, he drove to the basket. But Yao had other ideas. Yao threw Redd’s layup so far up into the stands that it almost made it to the second level.

That was the last time we ever saw Redd go inside the arc for the rest of the game.

“Bad idea,” Redd later admitted. “I’d rather miss six threes than have my shot thrown that far.”

By midway through the second half, the game was all but over. Team USA had taken its largest lead of 38 points when James emphatically dunked on China’s sharp shooter Li Nan.

China was not done, though. With five minutes left in the game, they began a furious comeback when Howard picked up his fifth foul. Chris Bosh and Boozer came in to provide inside help.

Bosh and Boozer, who were pretty much useless against the big men of Canada and Turkey earlier this month in a warm up games in Las Vegas and in China, were even worse against China’s big three.

Liu Wei, China’s starting PG, just threw the ball up and one of the big three caught it and scored. 

China got within 15 points at one point, but their comeback fell short when James and Anthony were brought into the game to help Bosh and Boozer in the paint. James and Anthony had enough ups to tip the ball away from Yao, Yi, and Wang.

With the final buzzer sounding, team USA won by 20 points, 102-82. USA’s next opponent is an even weaker team, Angola.

“Yes! I’m still undefeated in international play,” claimed Kidd again for the 12th time that night, "And I’m still going to be undefeated after we play Angola.”

Game notes: Dwyane Wade had 12 points. Boozer and Bosh had four rebounds combined. Bryant had five assists, five rebounds and nine points. Brett Favre is still contemplating on whether or not to play in the NFL. Liu Wei of China had eight assists. Sun Yue recorded three blocks. Wang Shipeng scored 12 points. Cheng Jianghua had eight turnovers.

P.S: Just in case anybody wanted to know, I will be cheering for China to win this game.