United they stand? It has been a dream come true
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BEIJING - He played in four Olympics. He is a fixture at every World Championships and post-retirement Olympics. He has seen the US at its peak and at its depth, and here is what the one and only Oscar Schmidt thinks of the 2008 United States Men's Olympic Basketball Team.
"For me, they are perfect," said the Brazilian great. "They are playing the way we are supposed to see an American team play."
He had just seen the US team move to tomorrow's gold medal game with an up-and-down 101-81 triumph over game Argentina, which had to play the final 35 1/2 minutes without the irreplaceable Manu Ginobili, who sustained an ankle injury in the first period. (That groan you heard was Spurs coach Gregg Popovich clutching his heart as he watched back in the States.) There had been a period of mild suspense as the Argentines slashed a 19-point first-period deficit to 6 (46-40) with 46.2 seconds remaining in the half, and no doubt people back in their homeland were certain things would have been different had Manu been in there.
"No," insisted Schmidt, who is in Beijing working for Brazilian television. "They get better without him. They play harder."
That suspense did not last long. Team USA ended the half with Carmelo Anthony (21 points, including 13 for 13 from the line) swishing three foul shots following a controversial call with 0.9 seconds left, and things swung their way immediately in the third quarter when Jason Kidd orchestrated a 12-4 run with four passes (three for official assists) that shredded a 2-3 zone that had been part of the reason for the first-half Argentina comeback. At that point, the US lead was back to a comfortable 17 at 61-44 and no harm would have been done had someone hit the "fast forward" button and sent us all into the gold medal match (or, I should say, rematch) with Spain, 91-86 conquerors of spunky Lithuania.
So the US is almost back where the hoop public in America thinks it should be. Of course, most casual basketball fans never understood why we lost games to these upstart foreigners in the first place. America's faith in the NBA brand, and in the quality of our nation's basketball players, was pretty constant, even in the face of mounting evidence that the basketball world had changed rapidly in the wake of the Dream Team experience.
The key word is "almost." Team USA must defeat reigning world champion Spain for a second time in these Games.
But that task has, frankly, been made easier because Spanish guard Jose Calderon, whom Celtics season ticket-holders should well remember for his role in Toronto's upending of the Green at home last season, has sustained a knee injury and will not play. Calderon is a big-time guard.
The problem for opponents is that the US is loaded with big-time guards. Kidd, Chris Paul, and Deron Williams give the US three exceptional point guards. Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade give them a pair of skilled, acrobatic, and intelligent off-guards.
LeBron James, Anthony, Dwight Howard, and Chris Bosh give them a pretty nice front-court rotation. And, as coach Mike Krzyzewski likes to say, they're now playing for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back.
By the way, don't say that in front of James. He's a bit touchy on the subject.
"We've been playing as a team for the last two years," he sniffed.
That's an interesting point, because all most of his countrymen know about what went on in Tokyo two years ago is that his team lost to Greece, for goodness sake, and didn't come home with a gold medal. What people forgot is that 48 hours later, Team USA pulled itself together and earned a bronze medal at the expense of - guess who? - Argentina. At the time, it was a big triumph for the US, which had lost to Argentina in the 2002 Worlds and 2004 Olympics. James had a big game (20 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists) and Wade exploded on the Argentines, putting up 18 of his 32 in the fourth quarter of a 96-81 win.
"Our guys showed a lot of heart tonight," said Coach K at the time. "That's our first step towards Beijing."
For six members of this team, that was a shared experience you can bet they drew on as they took the floor last night in the semifinal game. True teams are supposed to share the full range of experience, both good and bad. James, Anthony, Wade, and Howard definitely learned from the games against Greece and Argentina. They have come a long way as a, yes, team.
They still have lapses, sure. After a first period in which they submitted the entire package, which includes the suffocating defense, the 3-point shooting, the ferocious rebounding, and, most of all, the devastating transition game to construct a 30-11 lead, they gave a lot of it back in the second quarter before regaining control in the third. But give credit to Argentina, which got a jump-start from Andres Nocioni (brought off the bench in a strategic move by coach Sergio Hernandez) and a huge performance from Luis Scola, who worked relentlessly to put up 28 points and 11 rebounds. Argentina conceded nothing, with or without Ginobili, who is almost certainly out of the bronze medal game against Lithuania.
Six games in, no one had given the US squad a serious game. "They came here with great expectations, as they always do," observed former Australia standout Andrew Gaze, another member of the international TV chattering class. "We heard all about the new camaraderie and so forth, and we all wanted to know, 'Is it rhetoric?' Well, it's true. They've been exemplary. Of course, in the end, there's no substitute for talent."
Oscar Schmidt sees something else. "They came here and they practice hard," he said. "You cannot win if you don't practice hard. They want it. They want it more than they did two years ago. You can see the difference just by the way they are for the national anthem. They act the way you want to see your team act during their national anthem."
They will be ready for Spain. "We have been preparing four years to get to this point," James said.
"The way I felt entering today's game," said Wade, "never in my career have I felt it. This was the most important game of my life, even more than the NBA Finals. And the one on Sunday will be more important."
Team USA arrived here as champions of nothing. That's about to change.
Bob Ryan can be reached at
