Upon Basketball

Puerto Rico?!?! The United States Men's Basketball Team Just lost the first game ever since NBA athletes were allowed to play... to Puerto Rico! I thought I was mad/disillusioned/embarassed after the loss to Italy in the warm-up games, but this is beyond belief. Not only did we lose to PR, we got blown by 19!! Third-tier NBA guard Carlos Arroyo drops 25. US goes 3-24 from 3-point range. This is just sad. and dont think this isn't largely Larry Brown's fault.

I understand the flaws with this team; No pure jumpshooter, noone who can hit consistently from 3, absence of a point guard who fits with the style we are going to have to play. We threw a hodge-podge of NBA players together and "practiced" for about a month, when international teams play together year round (with an opening that their NBA stars can slide right into). With all this being said, I think Larry Brown is not running this ship correctly. The style that the Pistons won a championship with this season does not work with the group he has here. Dumping the ball to Tim Duncan is not good enough as option A, B, C and D. He may be close to the world's best player, but even a 6th grade intramural coach is going to see that this is our primary attack, and adjust accordingly. The playbook for the Spurs features a good deal of pick and pop and open J's. (Coincidentally these jumpers often go to Argentina's Giniboli, France's Parker and Turkey's Turkoglu) There is no reason why this team cant run wild on the internationals, with a change in playbook, and a change in rotation. Wouldnt a lineup of Duncan Okafor, Odom, Lebron and Marbury be able to do work? Cant we run Boozer, Okafor, and Stoudamire out there to rebound for AI and 'Melo? Shouldnt Shawn Marion only be a change of pace guy, not someone getting big minutes? Aren't he and Richard Jefferson 6 of one, a half-dozen of the other?( and RJ may be 7 or 8, to Matrix' 5 or 4)

Its pointless, though entirely correct, to point out that the US could use some jumpshooters. Was Michael Redd busy? Did Allan Houston have plans? ?Screw it, Wesley Person or Jon Barry could be out here thriving in the international game. However, we have who we have, and thnat still should be enough to win every game handily. In my opinion, you dont even need to shoot the three brilliantly to beat the zone that teams seem to be packing into. How about the pick-and-roll? Carmello and Lebron could run this all day, even against a zone. Set Marbury up with the ball out top. Kick the ball to Lebron on the elbow. He draws at least one defender. Let Carmello come over from the wing, and set a screen on Lebron's man to the outside. 'Bron rolls out to the wing and three things happen A) the defender gets hung up in the screen and James decides between a 12 footer and a drive to the rack B) the defender slips the screen and James kicks back to Carmelo for a drive, or a dish to the post for Duncan C) the confusion lets Marbury shoot a wide-open 3, and since he's been handling the rock hes got a decent chance of stringing it.

The way I see it, we are giving the other team only 2 looks on offense, and we cant rely on our jump shooters. If we can successfully beat the zone, we either win with jumpers and D, or make the team go back to man, and then the Wade-Jefferson-Marion dunk fest can begin. We need to let Boozer and Okafor and Stoudamire get in there and bully people for rebounds. Duncan can be a beast, but him getting beaten under the rim before the eyes of the bush-league refs is not his game (and you know Pop cant be loving it too much either).

Larry Brown needs to realize that Big Ben and 'Sheed are not there to clean everything up. He needs to know that no matter how many screens he calls, Eric Snow and Richard Hamilton are not going to be there to hit those J's. He needs to change up his bench and he needs to recognize who he has on offense.

Most importantly, we need to give a 1992 team 124-68 beating to the next team we play. Enough of this nonsense.

One positive, Jefferson caught a nasty facial on Ruiz from PR yesterday, few more of those wouldnt hurt either.