US mens hoop team wins gold medal

The US Olympic basketball team pulled away from scrappy Spain late in the 2nd half to win the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. Despite repeatedly being called for “ticky tack” fouls by the less than objective international officiating crew, the Dream Team 2.0 dispatched Spain 118-107 to regain their place atop the international basketball world. Of course the same scolds that had been trying to make the case that the *next* opponent was going to be the one that taught the US a lesson are already trying to put a negative spin on what was, in reality, wire to wire domination. They’re pointing to the tight gold medal game as evidence that the US basketball dominance isn’t as great as it once was.

True, the 2008 US Olympic basketball team didn’t have a 43.8 average margin of victory like the 1992 “Dream Team”. They “barely scraped by” with a 27.9 average margin of victory as they finished the Olympics 8-0 en route to the gold. Of course a major difference between then and now is that the entire world was in awe of the original “Dream Team”, while the current version is the pariah that the entire world basketball community, international journalists and crooked Olympic officials love to hate. No matter what the 2008 US team did, the European journalists and ESPN’s American co-conspirator Chris Sheridan found a way to put a negative spin on it. If they owned the paint, as they did for much of the Olympics, the bleating foreign press would point to their outside shooting. If they were nailing their threes, they’d suggest that it was only because opposing teams were taking away the inside game. If they blew times out, the press would suggest that they were “unprepared to gut out a close one”. And after tonight’s tough test the same” ink stained wretches” are pointing to the relatively narrow margin of victory as evidence of weakness.

Nonsense. What this team was able to do that none of the Dream Team sequels before them could is go through the Olympics on cruise control, and drop it into another gear when necessary. Many of their predecessors thought they could, but this team had the talent, depth, focus and court savvy to actually do it. They brought to the table the sense of professionalism that previous NBA laden squads were supposed to bring but failed to do so. The rest of the world took their best shot against Dream Team 2.0 and they barely blinked. For their opponents it was life and death, for the US hoop team it was a “day at the office” for the best basketball players in the world.

For the United States, it was more of the same—another impressive and balanced performance led by their superstars. Sixth man extraordinaire Dwayne Wade paced the American offense with 27 points followed by Kobe Bryant who added 20. Carmello Anthony, LeBron James and Chris Paul each chipped in with double digits as the US shot 60% from the field against a porous Spanish defense. Spain’s outside shots were falling all night, and this kept them in the game for longer than they really should have been.

Argentina claimed the bronze medal with an 87-75 victory over Lithuania. The American’s gold medal win was their first since the 2000 Sydney, Australia Olympic Games.