Three Company
Photo. Stephen HillSee what happens when you hit your threes? Facing what was going to be their first big challenge (well, their second actually, since Brazil was supposed to be tough) of the FIBA Americas tournament, Team USA came out hot from beyond the arc against Argentina, jumped out to a big lead and never looked back. And it wasn’t even the Mikes (Redd and Miller) doing the damage, but Kobe who got it going — scoring the U.S. team’s first 8 points, including two treys. When the first quarter ended, the U.S. was up by 15, they’d hit 6-for-11 from deep, and Mamba had outscored Argentina 15-13 by himself … For a minute at least, last night had a legit big-game feel and atmosphere to it, rather than the “Let’s watch the Globetrotters beat the Washington Generals” atmosphere the previous U.S. games have had … After Kobe (27 pts) put on his show, Carmelo took over, turning in the sickest one-man sequence we’ve seen all summer: first he knifed into the lane and threw down a vicious dunk over two Argentine bigs – which Bill Walton called the best dunk of Carmelo’s career and we weren’t arguing against – then on the next possession he caught an oop from Jason Kidd and finished without making the net move. Then on the next possession, ‘Melo hit a three to give the U.S. its first 20-point lead. From there they just maintained and cruised to a 91-76 win, stockpiling highlights and continuing to stick treys … Of course this wasn’t Argentina’s “A” team, as Manu, Nocioni, Oberto and Walter Herrmann weren’t playing. So don’t expect such a piecing if these two meet again in the Olympics … If you wanna nitpick — and we know some of you will — you could look at the fact that 91 points is Team USA’s lowest total in this tourney, or you could look at their 20 turnovers and be concerned. And we’ll even admit we’re not too thrilled that Redd hasn’t been hitting lately, but it’s not a big deal … Sickest play of the second half: Kobe caught the rock on a baseline cut and elevated on the right side of the rim, facing the basket. Absorbing some contact, he hung in the air and ended up on the left side of the rim, facing the basket, and muscled in a layup … Sickest almost-play of the year: Kidd went to his right off the top of the key and flipped an underhand oop off the glass to seemingly no one. But then LeBron came down the middle of the key, got airborne and just missed a two-hand finish. If he puts that dunk down, that might’ve been the second-best Team USA play ever after Vince’s human hurdle … We’ve heard so many good things about Luis Scola, but still hadn’t watch him play a whole game until last night. Honestly, he’s not bad, but all those people saying the Rockets don’t need to worry about the PF spot since Scola is there need to pump their brakes. Scola’s first bucket was nice – he spun off of LeBron and got off a scoop shot before tapping in his own miss. After that, though, he got in foul trouble and ended up with a really quiet 20 points. We read somewhere that Rudy T compared Scola to Kurt Rambis … Did you see when Carlos Delfino tried a lazy reverse dunk on a breakaway after the whistle and got hung on the rim? … Seeing David Stern in the crowd, we had some questions: first, was there any possible way Jim Grey would get to do a sideline interview with Stern? Second, if that happened, was there any possible way he’d be allowed to ask about the Donaghy thing? … So what do you do if you’re Dennis Rodman and an Australian pro team is offering you $80,000 to come down and play one game this season? That’s what the Sun Dragons of the NBL are doing, and Worm apparently hasn’t decided yet. What’s there to think about? No one likes the 174-hour flight down under, but 80 G’s for one night of work? Most people could live off of that for a year. Of course Rodman (who’s 46 now, making us feel really old again) could blow through that in one weekend, but still. In case you’re wondering, $80,000 per game over the course of an 82-game season works out to about $6.5 million per year. The NBA’s highest-paid guy, KG, takes home about $240,000 per game … New York City is crazy, Exhibit Z: Earlier this week, at the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue, a man was arrested after he stabbed someone in the head with a pen. According to the New York Post’s police blotter, 47-year-old John Stefanik was impatiently waiting in line behind a 61-year-old customer at the NBA Store’s Ticketmaster booth. For some reason, Stefanik “became enraged” and stabbed the victim with a pen. Apparently the victim is OK. Seriously, what is wrong with people? … We’re out like interviewing the Commish …
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August 31st, 2007 at 2:39 am
djKianoosh says:
team usa did their thing.. looked really good too. kobe melo and lebron seem to be trying to outdo one another. i’ve never seen carmelo play as well. hopefully he has a monster year in the nba and helps AI win a title…
another thing to nitpick is that half the time team usa is just freelancing and going one on one. if argentina B can stay within 20 points of this team when they couldn’t even buy a bucket, then it’s still a work in progress and team usa needs to work on executing some kind of team offense. at least it would look better. still, they’re good enough to be the overwhelming favorites in the olympics.
I guess we all want perfection from this team.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:47 am
Lucky Lester says:
missed the game, I’d love to see some of the highlights talked about in this smack..
if anyone has any links, i’d appreciate them
August 31st, 2007 at 3:15 am
buckets says:
is there n e sites that i can watch the games live??w/out payin cuz fuk that ill jus catch the 3 highlights on sportscenter
August 31st, 2007 at 3:42 am
Pistol Pete says:
what’s so nice about that jam by melo is that it was payback from the previous play when an argentine laid him out on a pick. i say if that play doesn’t happen melo’s not attacking the rim with such force.
August 31st, 2007 at 6:34 am
MobileOne says:
Can Rodman still basketball?
August 31st, 2007 at 7:05 am
Rodnets says:
All right a quiet 20 points for Scola. You were exactly the same with Nocioni.
I am convinced Scola will help Houston right away. How many underachieving PFs are now in the leage?
I will not pull any break, other than watching Yao a TMAC become truly contenders.
Peace
August 31st, 2007 at 8:53 am
João says:
The Saturday Semi-finals of Brazil x Argentina will be the game of the tournament. As a brazilian, I’m hoping that we can win, and to tell you the truth, I’m positive that we will win. Peace.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:05 am
Bust Jlaze says:
Yo Lester…I’m bout to hit NBA.com; they always got highlights of the games from the night before.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:17 am
jay says:
that is nuts..remind not wait in line at the nba store…gong to the hospital for a pen wound is not something i had in mind and i thought i would be only scared when i was picking my aquas up on september 22? damn!!
August 31st, 2007 at 9:33 am
seth says:
I’m with Rondets…Scola helps Houston INSTANTLY. Being from KY, this is difficult to say, but Chuck Hayes is not an NBA caliber starting PF. He’ll carve out a nice 10-15 year career doing dirty work off the pine, but you can’t be counting on him to play 30 plus per night on a contender. To me, he’s your Rambis-type. Scola, on the other hand appears to have a very polished post up game, nice mid-range J & appears to be one of those set screens, dive on the floor, box out types that just get the job done. He’s like Battier only playing the four, and with Yao, TMAC & a hopefully rejuvenated Stevie Wonder on the floor, that’s exactly what H town needs.
Here’s a question: Doesn’t David Stern have the JUICE to make sure these freaking games don’t start at midnight EST? There’s a reason that the only people actually watching these games are myself, 2 or 3 of the smack readers and Lebron’s mom…they start too damn late. I must admit I’ve been using the ghetto tivo (vcr) and watching the games in fast forward fashion before work the next morning. The way this U.S. team has played could do a lot to revitalize the sports image in the eyes of the casual fans, but they’re not staying up until 2 a.m. or tivoing the action to watch! I read a great article the other day that this is the same problem with waning viewership of the NBA playoffs. We all know the best games are in the west (for example, Dallas and Golden State last year, or Phoenix vs. SA) but no one will stay up to watch them. Forget re-seeding the playoffs or throwing out East and West, this would be the simplest and most logical way to amp up the interest in playoffs. Thoughts???
August 31st, 2007 at 9:57 am
buckets says:
honestly..a couple years ago wen argentina won that tourney..i thought scola and oberto were the same person…and i hate oberto but thas the type of player every team could use..
everyone needs to stop building him up like hes guna be THE reason t-mac gets past the first round..if tmac and yao are healthy and playing on point theyre goin far…not cuz of scola
August 31st, 2007 at 10:18 am
Tom Toronto says:
I know what you mean seth with the late nights, but honestly it’s a very Eastern way to think about it. Granted that the FIBA games could start earlier, but the Western games need to start at a time that people can actually buy tickets and see it after work. Even if you start the game at nine pm EST, that’s six pm on the West Coast. It’s set up pretty good right now I think, East games come on, and then the west games start almost right after.
PS I love staying up late to watch west coast games, after a great game (like Suns and Spurs or something) I can be like “You didn’t see it????” to all the boys at work the next day.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:19 am
seth says:
buckets…scola is a complimentary player. The type of winning “glue guy” that helps guys like Yao & TMAC be “on point.” The guy is generally considered the best foreign player not in the NBA and has Olympic gold on the resume. Unlike TMAC & Yao, he has actually WON before. He may not be a superstar, but he’s a player. Don’t hate.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:29 am
seth says:
Tommy T…I feel you on my east coast bias, you’re right. But a major portion of the United States population (the east coast megalopolis) as well as the major media markets, i.e. NY, Philly, Boston, D.C., etc. are not getting to see the best games in May & June, and with fan interest in the L at an all-time low, something drastic has to occur. Die-hard fans like you and I will sacrifice a couple of hours sleep to see a great game, but the “casual observer” needs a game they can’t get excited about that comes on during waking hours. Even as a die-hard I can tell you that some of those Eastern Conference snooze fest games could have been the late night game and put the West on in primtime. The NFL NEVER has a game that starts past 8:30 EST and look at the popularity of that sport! Western people still make those games, right?
August 31st, 2007 at 11:07 am
SWAT says:
Really all we need is Tmac to stop deferring to Yao. If he would be the superstar that he was/is and stop pretending like Yao is the #1 option we could have easily beat Utah last season. Scola will be a nice addition but I think it’s gonna be the team as a whole that gets us past the first round this year.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
3Ball says:
Hey Buckets, if you’ve got SportsCenter, you probably also have ESPN2. They’ve been showing the USA games live all tourney, usually at 11:00PM or midnight EST. Check that out if you can. Otherwise, I guess nba.com & SC are your answers, like Bust Jlaze said. If you’ve seen Carmelo’s nastiness in the lane already, though, you’re pretty well covered as far as last night’s game goes.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Bust Jlaze says:
Yeah, Melo’s dunk was freakin’ DISGUSTING. I threw up when I saw that.
I love those dunks where it seems like everyone just falls down when the ball goes through the hoop…it reminds me of NBA Jam back in the day; that was my favorite part of the game!
August 31st, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Jah says:
Yo, can we get a clip of that “would-be” alley oop from JKidd to LeBron, please?
September 1st, 2007 at 1:05 am
Diction says:
Pistol. you’re rite about that Carmelo dunk. You could just see it in his eyes. As soon as he got the ball he was gonna charge in and try to dunk on whoever was there. I’m glad, cuz that’s the best dunk i’ve eva seen from him. Monstrous.