Congratulations to TEAM USA!!! What an exciting gold medal game! Spain played very well but there was just no stopping us tonight. Dwade - unreal offensive performance. Kobe -CLUTCH SHOTS. LeBron - passes, rebounds, blocks, defends, scores, does WHATEVER it takes to win. Tayshaun Prince - absolutely perfect in limited minutes. Bosh and Howard - TOO STRONG.
I'd like to share a few special moments I saw during the medal ceremony.
LeBron did this hilarious one-leg-shaking dance on the Gold Medal stand and urged CP3 to break it down with him. Melo accidently left the medal distributor hanging big time. I mean this guy had both of his hands extended, going for the 2-handed international handshake, and Melo just like totally didn't see it. AWKWARD! Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard sang the National Anthem - HUGE PROPS for that. Tayshaun Prince SMELLED the roses - like, took a big whiff to see if they were real.
Everyone had their hand on their heart standing in attention at the podium. They represented our country with the finest integrity, sportsmanship, hustle, and teamwork.
I noticed all those things as well. Additionally, every time they cut to coach K, his cheeks were wet. At one point, Mike D'Antoni reached over and gave coach K a light shoulder massage and patted him on the back. Clearly D'Antoni has respect and admiration for coach K, and harbors no feelings of "it should have been me" as head coach. D'Antoni's stock shot WAY up in my book this last month.
Plus Kobe sought out and hugged Jerry Colangelo, which I thought was cool.
Another cool thing is, before USA celebrated their victory, most of them went to the scorer's table and shook hands with Doug Collins, a former Olympian and part of the the USA team that was blatently ROBBED of their gold medal, so blatently that they didn't show up to collect their silver medals and do not have them to this day.
Tom7 - yeah I saw LeBron running off the court right after the game ended and I was like "why is he going into the stands? He should be shaking hands with the Spanairds. And then they kinda panned the camera out and I realized he was giving Doug Collins a hug and then the rest of the team went over there to congratulate him. Very classy, I like that this team has a very strong understanding of the legacy of the olympics - past, present, and future.
sizz - as happy as I am that Team USA played their hearts out and won - I was ready to throw my beer THROUGH my TV when Kobe reached all the way around Fernadez right after he hit that 4 point play, leaving Dwight Howard on a POSTER. I mean he was doing stupid #### on D the WHOLE GAME. Thankfully his pedigree came alive in the 4th and he hit some HUGE buckets, but the defense in that game was atrocious. I don't care anymore though - we got the gold, doesn't matter how. Awesome teamwork, great coaching, perfect record - GOLDEN performance.
Respect given. Respect earned. Wait 'til the world gets a load of Dream Team 2012.
On another note...
It didn't take long for you to make a "hateristic" Kobe comment.
Just when I thought you would refrain from mentioning anything negative about Kobe, you come out and criticize him for reaching although he basically saved his teammates from a worlwide embarrassment of epic proportions. As if no one else on the team reaches in.
Tsunami
Whilst all of the praise ought to be given to the team. I believe that a great deal of praise ought to be heaped upon the shoulders of Jerry Colangelo. Were it not for him and Krzyzewski's coaching staff. I sincerely don't believe that they'd have acquitted themselves so well.
He ( Colangelo) got the players of buying into making that 3 year commitment to the team and playing. And as the architect of this all. I think that he ought to be lauded as well.
Just - in all honesty, I think Colangelo did a great job in getting the players to buy into the 3 year committment, but as for all the praise in PICKING the team. Come on - how hard is it to know to pick LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Kobe Bryant. The pick I loved was Tayshaun Prince - that was a great move by JC.
J-Dizzle:
I wasn't making a HATER comment. I was commenting on something that happened during the game. Kobe hit some shots late, yes, but he also forced most of those shots. In other words, they weren't high percentage and if he would have MISSED them, we would have been in trouble. He's an amazing shooter, so he hit them, and I'm glad. But at the same time, the reason we almost lost the game was that our defense was terrible. And the reason the defense was terrible was that CP3, Wade, and Kobe got beat off the dribble on VIRTUALLY EVERY POSSESSION. It's not HATING when I make an observation. It's on tape - go WATCH IT AGAIN if you missed it. The play I was referring to was the play where Kobe went ALL THE WAY AROUND his man to try to steal (not just a reach) and Dwight Howard was left out to dry. Even Doug Collins commented on how that was just totally stupid especially at that juncture in the game. Kobe and Wade wanted to be the heros today. That's why everytime they got the ball they looked to shoot. Luckily, both of them shot a high percentage - but they really didn't play within the team concept. And althought their brought their A-games offensively, we shouldn't have needed to score that many points to beat Spain. At the end of the day,
Alright alright Tsunami calm down. You've explained yourself and you've got a point.
But the fact that you think Kobe is the #2 most overrated player in the league is just way out of line. That's your opinion and I respect it. But c'mon lets get real here. I can name two other players right now - Arenas and Nash - that are more overrated.
On another note, it was a great Olympics and TEAM USA has made me proud. But I'm not so sure the intimidation factor had been completely regained. What do you think?
J-Dizzle. You are right. He is definitely not the second most over-rated. The guys that are REALLY over-rated are the people that only play 1 side of the ball. Nash should never have won an MVP, neither should Dirk, and Arenas is a clown.
It was a great Olympics. I am very proud of our guys. However, the fact that Spain almost beat us without Calderon and with a 17 year old point guard shows that we can still be bested in single elimination format.
I think that is good though - it means USA basketball players won't expect to show up and win like they did after 1992 and it makes for more exciting games.
I mean I am serious when I saw I was SCREAMING at 4 in the morning last night on every made shot, missed shot, turnover, etc. It would have been kinda anti-climactic if we would have won that game without some serious heroics don't you think?
Tsunami... I guess you've already seen the BOOK I wrote. Nice debatin' bro. I'm sure we'll be picking it up again at full speed in October.
And yes, it would have been anticlimactic without the tension. I'm actually glad that it was close. As I told TOM7, I was out bowling with my buddies last night when the game came on at 11:30 PST. When there were two minutes left, literally EVERYONE at the bowling alley stopped bowling and watched the rest of the game.
BleedPRPL&GLD... I swear dude, you are comedy. That CroMagnon comment made me laugh so hard it almost woke up the baby. I guess that means Pau is Neanderthal.
By the way, it was reported that Bigfoot's body was found in Georgia only to be reported a hoax a week later. Turns out it wasn't. Bigfoot was actually playing for Spain in the Olympics. Not one, but two!!
"... gold medal back in American hands."
Lol! You make it sound as if the gold medal had been held hostage this whole time.
Everybody played with heart and passion. And contrary to popular belief, every US basketball team BESIDES the 92' team wanted to win as a team as well.
Heres what we saw over this basketball tourny.
Dwyane Wade is healthy so he'll reassurt himself as the best player in the L'Eastern Conference again.
Go King James. He played well for team USA. He's had enough time to rest and practice before the games since his team was knocked out in the 2nd round of the playoffs. And it showed. Great energy.
Guess the MVP was a little overworked from playing 103 games this past season including 6 in the NBA FINALS with a broken shooting hand.
I'm guessing a few of the other starters would have a tough time knowing what its like since none of the other Starters besides Kidd have ever won a game in the Finals.
But in the game that mattered of course Bryant came through in the clutch scoring 13 points and 2 assists in the final 8 minutes of the game. 20 points, and (a game high) 6 assists. 50% shooting.
Kobe had his hand in 17 points of the last 8 minutes.
Curse is not the word for Cleveland Sports - this is a design that has been well-executed . I love God, but He is NOT a Cleveland Fan. Interestingly , after that period(the one after Fan), Fox Sports notified me that I had 666 characters remaining. Now, I'm rethinking whose architecture this "curse" really is...
kids games
