Team USA: Gold Medal Thoughts

Coach K and The Boys pulled it off. It started off easy, then NOT SO EASY, then it was over. Here are some thoughts about Olympic Ball:

• That last game was pretty great. First, it was on at 2:30 am, which meant I felt like I may have been the only person I know watching it live. Second, it was a legitimately close game. Both teams hit huge shots, which brings me to my second bullet.

• Team USA included three players (Kobe, LeBron, Wade, and to a lesser extent, Deron Williams and Chris Paul) who have experience in big games not allowing their teams to lose. That particular group hit big threes, threes which they have missed most of the passed two weeks, that ended up allowing them to survive an "A+ game," as LeBron put it, from Spain.

• The officiating in the Gold Medal Game was pretty horrendous. I hate when players get bailed out by the refs when they are out of control and that's exactly what happened on BOTH sides. The score was 69-61 at the end of the first half. WHAT THE HELL?!?! That is so many points!! That ridiculous score had a lot to do with turnovers turning into foul shots because of lame calls.

• Why couldn't we guard Juan Carlos Navarro? That was shocking and frustrating. I expect Jason Kidd to get burnt by everyone at this point, but Chris Paul? Weird.

• Portland looks like they are really in for a treat with this Rudy Fernandez character. He dunked on DWIGHT HOWARD! I started rooting for him a little by the end (as did assistant USA Coach Nate McMillan no doubt).

• Conversely, Marc Gasol looks to be a future hated player in the NBA. He looks like a taller, uglier homeless version of Jack Black with alcoholism and he also looks like a smells really bad. He seems like a dirty player and as much as I liked Rudy by the end of the game, I hated Marc just as much.

• The three most effective players on the USA Team were probably LeBron, Wade, and Chris Bosh. All three point guards were good, but a little inconsistent (except for Kidd, he was always useless), Kobe and Carmelo were predictably weird, and Dwight Howard's American to overseas exchange rate was pretty low. With LeBron controlling the game (with the occasional "Heat Check 3," a play straight out of the Cleveland Playbook), Wade constantly attacking, and Bosh running the floor and MAKING FREE THROWS, the recipe was there for Gold.

• John Glenn brought up the issue of whether the reason Duke has sucked over the last few years is because Krzyzewski has been hanging out with Team USA and not doing, well...Duke stuff. Maybe that's why their team is comprised of almost exclusively three point chucking white people.

• In the end, we learned this USA team could have been beaten. It would have taken a similar game to what we saw from Spain and a choke job from USA, but it could have happened. We also learned that Glenn owes me $20.