US Olympic hoop team clobbers Angola as March to the gold continues

The United States Men’s Basketball team had no trouble with Angola in their latest pre-medal round game and, despite frequent warnings from the European media that they’ll have their hands full with Greece and Spain, is starting to look nearly as dominant as the 1992 “Dream Team”. The US led 55-37 at the half and 81-53 after 3 quarters before coasting to a 97-76 victory that wasn’t as close as even that lopsided score indicated.

Dwayne Wade once again led the US team with 19 points as he continued to excel in his role as the team’s “sixth man”. Dwight Howard added 14 points and LeBron James and Carmello Anthony added 12 apiece as the US took the opportunity to limit their starters’ minutes against their overmatched foes. Kobe Bryant played only 18 minutes and Jason Kidd only 15, giving the opportunity for Deron Williams and Chris Paul to see significant action. Angola was led by Carlos Morais’ 24 points, but he was the only member of the team to post double digits as the American squad continued their brutal domination in the paint.

The Euro-centric media is now chortling that the US will suffer a comeuppance at the hands of their next opponent, Greece. Realistically, however, its hard to see a team that was clobbered by Spain and has nary an NBA player on the squad doing much to slow down LeBron, Kobe, et al. More problematically for the Greeks is the fact that they upset a significantly weaker US team in the 2006 World Championship semifinals. There’s likely not a team in the world that can compete with this incredibly deep and talented US squad, particularly with the “payback” motivation they’ll have against Greece.

Greece also struggled with the Spaniards zone defenses and slick guardplay. That also doesn’t bode well for them against the US, as there aren’t many guards slicker than Kobe, Jason Kidd and Utah Jazz phenom Deron Williams. Following the matchup against Greece comes the vaunted Spaniards, and the US team’s performance in this pair of games will give a good metric to where they stand in the inevitable comparison to the 1992 Magic/Michael/Bird led “Dream Team”.