Undefeated Team USA now must prepare for Boomers after crushing Germany

The Destruction Wrought was total and utterly complete.

Entering the final game of pool play, Team USA had little to play for. They could not improve their seed and in past competitions might have let up a bit, playing a sloppier game.

Germany had only pride to play for. Two days after losing their most important game in the Olympics to China, they were just bidding farewell to long time stars Dirk Nowitzki and point guard Patrick Roller.

The Americans came out strong with a 20-3 run and led by 19 after the first quarter. After that they kept rolling, the lead growing to 30 and then 40. By game’s end the US defense had hounded Germany into 30 percent shooting and carried home a 106-57 victory.

The half-court offense looked especially sharp but that may have been linked to the German defense. They ran a 2-3 zone which needs quick players who can move and shift fairly well; these are not the kind of players the Germans specialize in. 

Furthermore most of the German bigs model their game around Dirk’s soft perimeter oriented style. This is not conducive to good defense and as such the middle of the court was vulnerable.

One US player who took advantage of this was Dwight Howard who recorded the first double-double for Team USA with 22 points and 10 rebounds in just 19 minutes on the court. Howard had been struggling before this game but when he commits to moving more without the ball and flying around for rebounds he becomes a very valuable asset.

Four other players scored ten or more for the US including LeBron James who had a sub-par game with only 3 rebounds and zero assists (he did however hit four threes). It’s a testament to the lack of competitiveness of the game that no American played more than 20 minutes and that was Tayshaun Prince, the consensus 11th man on the team.

The only real flaw for the US was underwhelming free throw percentage of 61.1 percent. They were the second worst shooting team in pool play, finishing better than only Iran.

The worst performance for the Germans during pool play had to be Chris Kaman. After a 24-point first game, he shot just 35 percent and never scored more than 10 points. He broke double digits in rebounds against Spain and China but did not have much of an impact for a team than failed in their primary goal of getting out of pool play.

Attention moves to Boomers

The US now enters the most difficult stage of this tournament, the knockout stage.

Simply put, the US will probably win any game unless that a play poorly (turnovers, cold shooting, forcing drives into zones, allow opponent’s offense to operate), run into a hot shooting team that is executing well and allow the opponent to control tempo and limit their running game.

The first opponent will be Australia, the team that played a very competitive game in the final exhibition before the Olympics. They run a nine-man rotation that boasts a fair amount of talent.

For Australiait starts with the front court of Andrew Bogut, Chris Anstey, David Anderson and Matt Nielson. All four can step out and stretch the defense with their shooting and pass well.

The swingmen all contribute in different ways, nice passes, timely threes and a good plays within the offense. The top player there is Brad Newley who has been a slashing and scoring machine (13.2 PPG) in this competition.

The Australian point guards are Patrick Mills and C.J. Bruton. Mills is an excelled scorer who reputedly burned the USpoint guards the last time these teams played. Bruton is the distributor, adept at feeding the slew of Australian forwards and centers in good position to score.

The road to the game has been a strange one for the men form down under. They were routed by Croatia in their first game, a big loss at the time because it appeared that those two teams would be competing for one spot in the second stage.

The lost their second game to Argentina but struck back with wins over Iran and Russia, the later of which was a 15-point blowout that eliminated the Russians and clinched Australia’s spot in this game.

In their final game against 4-0 Lithuania, the Aussies had nothing to play for (neither did the Lithuanians) but still put on an impressive performance, cruising to a 106-75 win.

In that game Australia showed a different tactic defensively that they had earlier. For most of their games they have been content to pack the lane and surrender outside shots. Against Lithuania, however, they extended their defense, probably because of Lithuania’s proclivity for hitting three-pointers.

The Australian offense is based in the Princeton offense and features a plethora of off-ball cuts and screens. They have been the second best 3-point shooting team in the Olympics and have also excelled at the free-throw line.

If the US concentrates on disrupting the movement it will have a far greater effect than trying to snipe the passing lanes.

Australia is a competent team though they are not in the top echelon of the teams on this tournament. The US should beat them and if they don’t the players probably should be required to walk/swim back to the states.

Looking ahead, in the likely event that the US wins their first game, they will face the winner of Argentina/Greece. Those are the last two teams to beat the US but have both fallen to Team USA once since then.

Both teams control tempo and could give the US trouble if things come together for them.