August 29, 2010

Mike Krzyzewski  joked on Sunday that as a younger coach he might have thrown a chair in the locker room at halftime of the United States’ game against Slovenia.

The Americans bumbled through nearly seven minutes of the second quarter without a field goal, giving the heavily pro-Slovenia crowd — like a chanting, green version of the one at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium — a dollop of hope.

In the end, the United States pulled away and won its second game of pool play easily, 99-77, behind 22 points by Kevin Durant. There were no chairs thrown at the Abdi Ipekçi Arena, but Krzyzewski asked a Turkish reporter, “Do you know my reputation?”

Much like those seven listless minutes, there cannot be too much read into two strong games for the United States. Especially with four knockout games looming in its attempt to win a world championship gold for the first time since 1994.

“You can’t go too crazy about anything,” Krzyzewski said. “You have to keep calm in these situations, as it’s just one game and you’re out.”

DURANT IS THE WORKHORSE The projections were correct. This team will go as far as Durant carries it, with Derrick Rose as a capable copilot. Durant has shown confidence in shooting early, and shined against Slovenia by creating offense from defense. The Americans had five first-quarter dunks, many thanks to turnovers and transition.

“I’m just being aggressive within the offense,” he said. “I may take some bad shots, but my teammates, they don’t mind.”

Vassilis Spanoulis scored 28 points to lead Greece to an 83-80 victory over Puerto Rico on Sunday in the opening round of the basketball world championship.

Kostas Tsartsaris added 14 points for Greece (2-0) in the game that saw four lead changes and three ties in the fourth quarter alone.

Juan Jose Barea, who plays for the Dallas Mavericks, had 20 points for Puerto Rico (0-2), which lost 75-66 to Russia in the tournament opener.

Greece took the lead for good at 76-75 on two free throws by Spanoulis with 2:38 to play.

Greece had a decided edge at the free throw line going 20 of 33 while Puerto Rico was 9 of 18.

Germany needed two overtimes to beat Serbia 82-81 in the second day of competition in Group A of the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

The game was well contested from the start, where the Serbaisn started the game by going strong in the paint and had a balanced attack. The first quarter ended 17-14 in favor of Serbia as Kosta Perovic, Novica Velickovic and Milan Macvan scored 12 of those points.

Then in the second quarter the bench players came out for Germany and scored big for them as guard Heiko Schaffartzik made 11 points, 8 of them in the second and also Jan Jagla was a factor to give them a 37-34 halftime lead.

Demond Greene and Steffen Hamann took control of the game in the second half as Greene made some big shots to put Germany on top as they finished the third quarter up 56-54.

The Serbian shooters were held during the game but came out in the final quarter, as Aleksandar Radic made two straight three pointers in the final seconds to send the game into the first overtime of the FIBA World Championship tied at 69.

In the overtime period the veteran guards came into play again as Hamann, captain of the German team, made two key baskets at the beginning of the quarter to give the Germans an early lead. Then Serbia came back with a three pointer by Milenko Tepic and a free throw by Kosta Perovic tied the game at 73 with 1:06 left. The game stayed that way as both teams scored 4 points each, to go into a second overtime.

The U.S. National Team's 99-77 win over Slovenia on the second day of the 2010 FIBA World Championship had its peaks and valleys. But the U.S. was again able to count on its defense to carry it through its second straight comfortable victory.

There was a time in this game where it looked like the pro-Slovenian crowd and the FIBA rules for traveling were knocking the Americans off their game. The low point was a stretch of 25 offensive possessions spanning the first and second quarters when the U.S. had twice as many turnovers (12) as they did scores (six).

Four of the 12 turnovers were travelling calls. The whistle was quick to blow when a U.S. ball-handler took a step or two before putting down a dribble after receiving a pass, a call that is not made in the NBA and that will come into play often for this team that wants to push the ball every chance they get.

"It's tough when you're going full speed to catch the ball, stop on a dime and dribble," Andre Iguodala said afterward. "It's almost like you can't catch it."

That travelling rule seems to be officiated differently every night and is one that the U.S. was rarely whistled for in the 2008 Olympics. In fact, after Sunday's game, Slovenian forward Bostjan Nachbar said that not enough of those travelling calls were made against the U.S.

"Too many times, the refs don't call that when Team USA's on the floor," Nachbar said.

Either way, it's a call that this team will certainly have to adjust to as this tournament goes on, because their margin for error will not be as great in the medal rounds as it was on Sunday.

A smaller margin of error also means they won't be able to withstand an ugly 25-possession stretch like they did against Slovenia. That stretch cut an early 12-point lead down to six. It reached five a possession later, keeping the crowd very much into the game.

"The game was getting away from us a little bit," U.S. head coach Mike Krzyzewski said afterward. "You're just going to have stretches like that when you play five games in six days. We had to regain our poise. And I thought we did by the end of the first half to get a double-digit lead."