United States Squeaks Past Brazil

After Team USA took care of Croatia and Slovenia in relatively easy fashion in their first two games of group play, they headed into Monday’s game with their toughest competition within the group and one of their toughest tests at the World Championships altogether.

 The United States got a break by not seeing Nene or Anderson Varejao. If the Brazilians had both of those guys in the post, then the US would have been woefully undersized in this game.

 Instead, Brazil was forced to try and run with Team USA and dump it off inside to Tiago Splitter. Led by Leandro Barbosa, that attack worked for a while as Brazil led the United States by three at halftime.

 The United States finally seized the lead when Lamar Odom dunked it with a little over seven minutes to go to give the Americans a 64-62 lead. But, they couldn’t put the pesky Brazilian squad away and it went all the way down to the final buzzer.

 We saw why exactly this team misses Kobe Bryant and LeBron James so much. That is mainly because of their ability to score in crunch time. With both of those guys sitting out the World Championships, Team USA had only one basket in the final 6:50 of the game and that was buy the old man of the team, Chauncey Billups.

 Also, Kobe’s defense on Leandro Barbosa was missed. The last time these two teams met was in an Olympic qualifier in 2007 when the United States easily defeated Brazil behind Kobe holding Barbosa to just 1/7 from the floor.

 Barbosa didn’t have a great shooting night yesterday either, but he did finish with 14 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists.

Durant continues to lead Team USA

 After a Chauncey Billups miss late in the game that would have sealed it up, Brazil’s Marcelo Huertas drove to the basket and drew a foul to go to the line and try and tie the game at 70 with three seconds left.

 Huertas missed the front end and then intentionally missed the second one and he corralled the rebound. Leandro Barbosa drove the basket with a chance to win the game and it bounced around the rim a few times and fell off as Team USA held on to a 70-68 win over a tough Brazil team.

 Kevin Durant led the United States with 27 points and 10 rebounds and they needed every bit of his outstanding effort to get past the Brazilians. The veteran of the squad, Chauncey Billups came up big with 15 points. Derrick Rose was the other American in double figures with 11 points.

 Lamar Odom played well with 8 points and 9 big rebounds.

 Mike Krzyzewski was able to rotate in everyone for a good bit of minutes in the first two games, but this time he had to rely on his starters for increased minutes. Four of the five starters played over thirty-minutes with Andre Inguodala being the only one under that with 29 minutes of action. Kevin Durant played 39 minutes for Team USA.

 Some might see a close game like this as a warning sign for Team USA, but I think it was good for a young team like this to be tested. Make no mistake, Brazil is a very good team and was one of the three teams I really though could give the United States trouble in the World Championships.

 I had no doubt that it would be a close game between the two and now this team has been tested early and I think it will benefit them in their quest to redeem themselves at the World Championships by winning it for the first time since 1994.

 The win over Brazil pretty much clinches Group B for the United States as they have played their toughest opponents in the group and are off to a 3-0 start.

 Team USA will play Iran on Wednesday and finish up group play against Tunisia on Thursday. The United States shouldn’t have much trouble against these two teams and they should walk out of Group B with a 5-0 record heading into the knockout rounds starting this weekend.

 If the United States wins Group B as expected then they will start the knockout rounds on Monday against the fourth place team from Group A, which would be Germany if things ended today.