Olympic Basketball 2012: Should US Be Worried About Contest with Lithuania?

Team USA just completed a very tight contest with Lithuania. All of this comes on the heels of an absolute massacre of Nigeria that many thought proved without a doubt that this version of the Olympic team was truly the best of all time.

Does this result cast a shadow on that?

I think that it absolutely does.

What did we learn from this contest? We learned again that Team USA is incredibly undersized and has definite problems when it either can't get out and run or can't hit the three-pointer like it did against Nigeria.

Lithuania is definitely not a bad team, but nobody saw them bringing such a serious challenge to the Americans. It dropped a contest to France 82-74, and for comparison's sake, Team USA took down France 98-71.

There shouldn't have been a problem, but there was.

This is an amazing team, but it is beatable if you're able to take it out of its element and challenge it in the post. I know that this is old news and has been reported numerous times, but after watching Team USA take down Spain 100-78 in an exhibition, you really began to wonder if this team would actually have problems when playing.

After all, with both of the Gasol brothers in the posts, if Team USA could handle them, it should be able to handle anybody with relative ease.

Team USA did escape today with a win, but it does need to be careful. No team is perfect, and this contest with Lithuania highlighted some of the biggest concerns around the squad headed into the Olympics.

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