USA clearly has some problems. With all due respect to every team in the Olympics, the US trumps them all easily on player-for-player talent. On paper it isn't even a competition.

But their teamwork is nearly non-existent. They struggle with backdoor cuts and playing defense where the ball moves quickly for any longer than 10 seconds. They're surprisingly easy to carve up in the lane, and they rely too much on 1-on-1 isolation.

Serbia played a solid game but not exactly the world's greatest. The same is true for Australia's effort on Wednesday. Neither squad played above themselves to put the USA in real danger of losing. Team USA could very easily be 2-2 right now and staring down the barrel of missing the quarterfinals if only Serbia and Australia held their nerve.

Team USA will still be favorites for gold but the field is now completely open. I think any of the top 8 could beat Team USA on their night at this rate. It's no longer a 7 team slugfest for silver.

What about that pass! While I can't see the US dropping a game they do look shaky when the go full iso, which is most of the time.

Why do they keep referring to them as the "dream team" that's long gone..... This lot are far from the original dream team...

Some of the players are a bit of a suspect choice. Jordan and Cousins are just too erratic and a little immature in the way they play and deal with their emotions. Klay isn't motivated enough to go splash, Durant is too deprived and it essentially leaves Irving and Melo to do everything.

Their problem isn't talent, it's their system, structure and choice of types of players. If they downgraded a bit in their choice of a couple of the starting 5 and had bigs who are just good hard workers, they could win every game sharing the ball between Durant/Irving at PG with Klay and Melo on the wings.

I thought Spain were spent and then I watched them beat Lithuania by 50 points by basically letting Gasol go to work and hitting their open looks.

I think they could cause America a lot of problems!

Has Barnes actually stepped out on court yet?

Serbia and Spain are legit international basketball nations, so is Croatia and Lithuania, I will put Australia into that category as well.

Team USA (not The Dream Team by any stretch) will have to work for gold this time around, that seems certain.

As anon above said, they need a defensive, basketball-IQ, team-oriented centre in that line-up and they don't have it. Adams and Bogut are the sort of player they could really use out there.

A friend wondered if they shouldn't have taken Plumlee. Maybe Lopez. A lot of the decent centres are internationals - Gobert, Gasol, Gasol, Ibaka, Porzingis, etc. It didn't need to be a star, more a guy who was going to be in the right place at the right time.

It wasn't quite as close as that though. France were down 8 with a very short time to play and knocked down a three on the siren to bring it within one shot.

The US is showing time and again however that they are only slightly better as a team than the competition.

Very short time to play ≠ on the buzzer ;)


I get that it's hard for them to play with 100% focus when they know they can basically turn it on at will and still win.
It could bite them on the arse, but I suspect we'll see them step it up now that the real matches begin.
Time will tell I guess.