Let's look at that Celtics team.... They were a defensive team, but Spain doesn't have an offensive weakness. They have Point gaurd play, they have post play, they have wing play with Rudy...I think they'd beat the Cs in 7.
They have post play against a team that was weak in the post (US). Their front line consisted of a star (Pau Gasol) who got absolutely destroyed by the Celtics frontline and his chunky less skilled brother. Spain's frontline would have gotten eaten up by the Celtics and the Celtics would win.
Spain played WAAAAYYYYYY over their heads in this game. This is why you never know in a 1 game situation.
Great hanging with you guys! Congrats to Spain again for playing a miracle game and making it memorable. Thanks to the US for bringing it home though. Time to sleep. Peace out all.
Great game by Spain. Ricky Rubio is going to be spectacular, regardless of what NBA scouts might think of him. I doubt many people would have believed if you'd told them it would be a three point game with 2.5 minutes to play...
Ricky Rubio can play. His one problem is his poor shooting. It can be worked on. The rest of his game is NBA caliber.
That was an incredible game. Spain did play over their heads and it made for a meomorable gold medal game. Kudos to Cobi and Wade for stepping up. Kudos to Spain for playing a great game. Nice gesture by team USA with respect to Doug Collins.
But the US defense did a bad job of rotating on the switch to the weak side pass. Spain had lay ups because no defender came to fill the space.
Congratulations to your team This reminds me of that thread started by Guamster I think in MLS N&A asking if Cobi and Shak would be able to coexist on the Galaxy and hooked a bunch of posters who started asking him what the hell he was talking about - it was really funny. What are you a shill for the NBA? You make my point when you say your position is superior especially since you don't read closely enough to even know what my position is. Kindly show me where I gave Isaiah a pass. What you don't seem to realize is that I'm not trying to win a debate with you, I'm just asking questions about how the league could be improved -- you think a system where tanking and being bad may be rewarded (and may not) is great. I don't. And I can't help it if you don't know that it's well known that the Spurs kept Robinson out after he got better that season. Anyway, I'll drop it since you think the Spurs wouldn't have won any Championships with Tim Duncan and David Robinson without such brilliant moves. I disagree with this one - the Celtics defense is too good, and they are too balanced offensively for Spain to key on any one area. Ray Allen would keep them honest, we already know that Garnett would outplay Gasol, and Pierce would takeover when everyone else is cold. I didn't see it that way (although I didn't see any of their other games) - they played smart and got some help from the officials but I'm not sure this was a case of them playing waaaay over their heads. Not that I'm sure they would win more than 1 or 2 out of ten games against these guys, but take Kobe off this team, or Kobe and Wade, and Spain's chances improve significantly which seems surprising to me. On the other hand, put the Celtics out there and I'm not sure Spain could have kept it that close. I doubt it would fly in the NBA, but I like how it seemed like fewer ticky tack fouls got called.
I completely disagree with this. USA was basically shutting down everyone they came across - it wasn't an accident that Spain torched them like this. With the Lakers, Pau Gasol didn't have any help down low really. With Spain, he, Marc Gasol, and that other dude basically slammed the boards and dominated Dwight Howard. The Cs do no havign anything close to a Dwight Howards. Garnett is a big man but he's not a center like Howard. The Cs played D by shutting down the perimeter and going from there. Also, Spain can go around 9 deep, so they have the horses as well. Here's my question - how could the Cs possibly defend Spain? They have 2 very good points - Calderon and Ricky, an elite 2 gaurd in Rudy Fernandez, scoring down low with the Gasol brothers, and good wing play. They are athletic, big, skillful, and confident. I don't see how any NBA team could hang with them - they simply aren't as well rounded or balanced or deep.
IMO, that's part of the problem of All-Star teams like this - they don't know each other as well as teams that play together all the time, and that have the right balance of stars and role players. When everyone's a star, sometimes you lack cohesion and that worked in Spain's favor on both ends of the floor. Let's not get too carried away, Howard only played like 17 minutes and Garnett is a better player. I also think you underrate some of the Celtics big role players. The Cs played great team defense and they wouldn't have allowed all the weak side lay ups and shots that Alberto referenced earlier. Calderon is an average NBA player and Gasol, while above average, he isn't a world beater. The Celtics are more athletic, just as big, more skillful and play just as well as a team.
Take Kobe off the roster, keep Wade, and give us back Calderón, and we can call it even. Injuries are what they are, but people forget our second best player (at least, depending on how you rate Gasol), best jump shooter, and the guy supposed to run the offence, did not play last night, and his sub was a 17-year-old. Navarro picked up a lot of the slack at the point, but he's not a PG, and although direction-less crazy worked for us, you wonder what would have happened if Calderón had been running plays in those select possessions when we 4-5 points down and the U.S. had not converted their previous possession. Rubio is still raw, but I'd like to see what would happen if you put a 14-year old American to play in the minor leagues (which I'm equating to the Spanish league, although the Spanish league is probably better), or a high-school player (even if he is the best highschooler in the country) to play significant minutes in an Olympic final guarding Chris Paul - and keep it close. The fact that Rubio's been there, done that kind of shuts my brain down. Which brings me to this: why the 19-year-old rule? If the purpose is to give highschoolers a teamplay boot-camp, Rubio doesn't need that. If it's to prevent them from going money-crazy at very young ages, for better or for worse Rubio will have played 5 years as a pro by 19. If it's to ensure that the NCAA gets good players and milks them for the one year, obviously Rubio will never play in the NCAA.
As soon as the 2nd half was starting, I feel asleep. Dissapointed about that, but the US won the all important gold medal. Saw some of the opening ceremony, and liked what they did for Doug Collins and Coach K.