Final US performance downright dismal

Facing a middle of the pack Australian team without heir best player, the US Men’s National Basketball team should have unleashed a torrent of skill, talent and spectacular dunks to earn one of their patented 20+ point blowouts. The operative word, however, in that whole line of thinking is “should.”

Instead a spunky Boomer team hung around with the USwhich played listless basketball and survived more on its own edge in talent than anything else. The Aussies were playing the game without their team anchor and only NBA player, center Andrew Bogut, who suffered an ankle injury.

The Americans came out sluggish in the first quarter and actually trailed for most of the period as they tried to attack with isolations. Australia responded with a defense that surrendered space on the perimeter to fortify the area around the basket.

The US could have been in a bigger hole if not for a number of Australian miscues which included blown layups, missed open jumpers and two fouls on three point attempts. A small US scoring spurt gave the US a small lead at the end of the first and through much of the second but the lead ballooned during an 18-4 US run at the end of the half.

Against Canada and Turkey the USunleashed beatdowns after pulling away in the second quarter, but Tuesday was a different story. The Australians burst out of the gate and got the deficit under five before another wave of US scoring put the game out of reach.

The Australians again came back in the fourth cutting a 14 point lead to seven with half of the quarter to go. The US snuffed out the upset attempt but Australia made the final score 87-76, keeping the deficit respectable and giving the USits closest game in the pre-Olympic exhibitions.

The biggest worry stemming from this game is that the UShad trouble against a team that just isn’t that good. Experts have the Australians as somewhere between the seventh and ninth best teams out of the 12 competing in the Olympics and that is assuming Bogut can play.

The team that faced the US was composed mostly of complementary players. Eleven of the 12 US players are better than any Australian who too the court Tuesday. David Andersen, one of the best big men in Europe and probably the best Aussie on the floor today, was held to just four points.

Instead the Australians got contributions from most of their other players and managed to cobble together a good game. Former NBA forward Chris Anstey was hitting jumpers and layups while doing yeomen’s work on the glass. C.J. Burton effectively ran the offense while slasher and former second round pick Brad Newley attempted to carry the scoring load, hoisting up a team high 11 shots.

David Barlow was quietly efficient for Australia, hitting 80 percent of his shots and a pair of 3-balls, but the real treat for viewers was diminutive point guard Patrick Mills.

Mills stands under 6 feet tall but lordy, lordy is that kid fast. He scored 13 against Team US, repeatedly running right past the vaunted American point guards and finishing around the USbigs.

One thing the Aussies did not show was any fear of the US. The Boomers are known to be a bit chippy and were not afraid to knock people around or jaw with the Americans after someone hit the floor.

The final numbers of the game tell a rather disturbing story. The US hit only 20 percent of their 3-pointers and let Australia shoot over 48 percent. Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant, two of the leaders of the team, combined to hit seven of their 24 shots.

What’s worse is that the US showed impatience on both ends of the floor. They did not follow the Australians off the ball and as a result of an intricate Australian offense gave up many open shots.

They also reverted to gambling for steals, a ploy that is more effective when there is a shot-blocker to erase any mistakes. This team however left most of its shot blocking at home and Dwight Howard only has five fouls on any given night.

The USoffense still relies to heavily on getting point on fastbreaks after turnovers. They don’t play good enough defense for this strategy to not to backfire at least once and in the half court they looked lost for much of the game.

The ball-sharing, probing the defense plan was not in use today as Team USA spent most of the game trying to drive on isolation plays (against a defense that was packing the lane) or three pointers when even a sliver of space opened up. Only late in the game, when Australiastarted throwing out some zones, did offensive flow return, mostly through the work of Dwyane Wade, who several times drove the baseline and hit centers cutting down the lane for big dunks.

Tempo seems to be a problem for the US team as their play becomes very sloppy when they can’t run in the open court. Australia limited their possessions and many other Olympic teams are even better at controlling the pace of the game.

After this game it’s clear the USstill has some work to do before their “Redeem Team” moniker becomes reality. Struggling with an undermanned Aussie team does not bode well for matchups with Greece and Spain.

Looking back on this five game exhibition series it is hard to see what the US really proved. They faced five teams which were missing some of their top players (of particular note is the fact that Turkey hung around without Turkoglu or Okur) and blew the doors off of four of them.

In each game however they showed moments of weakness, only time will tell if those were just hiccups on the way to gold or symptoms of more serious problems.