Links: Game Notes: Team USA 120, Lithuania 84

by Lang Whitaker

Morning. It’s Day 2 of Team USA’s Macau Adventure, and this morning they’re faving off against Lithuania. I’ve been practicing typing names that end with “-ivius” and “-vicius.”

And we’re off…

• Certainly Lithuania is going to throw a zone at Team USA, because I really can’t recall Turkey doing it at all against the US. And we all know that for no good reason, zones keep screwing up Team USA.

• Lithuania comes out man-to-man and Kobe hits a long two.

• Sarunas! Jasikevicius! I think Barack co-opted his last name. Anyway, he’s balling for Lithuania. I missed Fran Fraschilla and Rick Kamla’s starting line-ups for today’s game, as well as Kamla’s international basketball fantasy impact reports.

• Dwight Howard. Dunk. Then Dwight Howard. And One. Frashcilla calls him “265 pounds of live wire.” Reminds me of when Clyde Frazier called Chris Kaman “250 pounds of…fiasco.”

• Hello, Robertas Javtokas! My man looks like Andris Biedrins, but he just threw down a hammer dunk in the halfcourt offense. Wow. everyone cleared out of the way on that one.

• Dwight again. Then Kidd sags on a pick-and-roll and gets a steal and throws it out to Bron for a dunk. So we’re like two minutes in and the score is 10-2, Team USA. I’m sure the Lithuania coach loves this start. Timeout.

• And out of the timeout, LeBron gets a steal and runs out for a dunk. Kidd gets a strip on the break off Kaukenis (who played at Seton Hall). Then Kaukenis misses a J and Kidd gets a breakaway layup.

• Javtokas picks up his second foul, and Lithuania goes to a 2-3 zone. Kobe dribbles through the zone and gets a lay-up. So that didn’t work.

• Linas Kleiza checks in, and somewhere David Thorpe begins writing a sidebar for ESPN.com about how Kleiza should be starting in the NBA. Meanwhile, they turn it over again and Dwight gets a lay-up, and one. The score is 18-5 now.

• Next game is Sunday morning at 3:00 a.m. against Russia. Will I be awake for that one? Hmm…

• Dwight hits the free throw. He’s got 9 and 3. It’s 19-5 with 4:57 left in the first.

• Think Team USA could get some tighter jerseys?

• Team USA subs in Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade, and Kleiza immediately hacks Dwight Howard after a missed shot. That George Karl defense is hard to shake.

• Kobe wets a three. 24-5, with 3:20 left in the first. Wonder if Team USA can hold them to single-digits in the first quarter.

• Break up Lithuania! A two from the wing makes it 24-7. Then Team USA gets Wade on a run out and eventually Dwight gets fouled.

• Bosh checks in for Dwight, and Deron Williams and Melo come in a well. Melo immediately drills Kleiza on a drive to the rim.

• Kleiza kinda has a new look, with a longer buzz cut and beard. His new nickname is “Eastern Promises.”

• Kleiza’s free throws give them 9 points. Team USA comes down and passively attacks the zone. The shot clock runs down and finally Chris Paul tosses up a jumper while doubled…and drains it.

• Lithuania returns and finds Petravicius in the post. He spins and shoots over Bosh, and D-Wade comes from the weak side and swats the jumper about twelve feet away.

• And there it is, a basket by Petravicius makes it 11 points, breaking the double-digit barrier.

• D-Wade looks amazing, by the way. This is two games in a row for him (the only back-to-back of the summer for Team USA, actually) and he’s looked aggressive and like he used to look with Miami back in 2005.

• Bosh gets a dunk against the zone to end the first, making it 31-15 after one. Looks like night and day from Game One against Turkey.

• The second starts and Bosh proves he still can’t guard anyone one-on-one under the rim.

• Chris Paul rips Jasikevicius in the open court and Mike Redd checks in. USA inbounds the ball before Lithuania can set up and Redd pops a three from the corner over the zone. Jasikevicius hits a three in return. Then Siskauskas hits a three from the top. They’ve cut it to 36-23 with 7:17 left. LeBron’s back in at the 4, and Kobe and Dwight check in, too. Here we go.

• 5 straight with this line-up. 41-25.

• LeBron guards Jasikevicius and rips him in the open court. Then Kobe pokes a ball loose. Eventually my man Javtokas gets loose and pounds another dunk. When he’s completely uncovered and all alone, he’s a powerful dunker. I get the feeling that if he was in the NBA, however, he wouldn’t be completely uncovered and all alone very much.

• Melo hits a three over the zone, giving the US a 48-31 lead with 3:31 left.

• Starbury’s awake. Just pointing that out.

• Team USA is remarkably better at goaltending now than they’ve ever been in the past. I write that because LeBron remembers to knock a ball off the rim in time to save a basket, and they toss it out to Kobe for an alley oop.

• By the way, Dwyane Wade is bringing the tights back.

• LeBron catches in traffic on the break and rips off an amazing 360, in traffic, but misses the lay-up. D-Wade ends up on the floor fighting for the loose ball.

• Lithuania hits a three out of a timeout to make it 50-37, with the first half almost over.

• Redd from the corner, bang!

• As the half winds down, Bosh hits a lefty hook shot in the paint while being hacked.

•Halftime, 56-39. Most relevant stat: assists — USA 18, Lithuania 7.

• Lithuania stays zone and scores six straight, then Bron hits a three from the top of the key. Then Kaukenis gets a three, Then Melo a layup. A flurry of offense. 61-48, USA. Javtokas almost gets loose for another dunk but Kidd fouls him. Javtokas’s nickname is The Shark, it seems. Hey, it is Shark Week, isn’t it?

• Jasikevicius hits a three, making it 61-52. Team USA looks tired for the first time. Maybe the back-to-back is catching up to them.

• Coach K looks like he has two black eyes, for some reason, except his eyes are really red instead of black. Strange. Maybe he fell asleep in the tanning bed or something.

• Pekrevicius gets loose under the rim and scores to cut it to 10, and Team USA score 4 straight on two fastbreaks. Team USA leads by 14. Then Team USA rips Lithuania on the inbounds and Kobe flips an oop to Bron. Melo scores in transition, and then Dwight blocks a shot and Melo gets fouled on a runout. I think this ends Lithuania’s run. Time for me to make another espresso.

• Rick Kamla and Fran Fraschilla start talking about the X Games, and Fraschilla shouts out Danny Way, who apparently took a huge spill at the X Games. Fraschilla notes he’s sure “he’ll bounce back, so to speak.” Now he needs to make a joke about Kobe’s backdoor ability.

• Kobe gets a run out dunk to make it 75-55 with 4 minutes left in the third. That’s a 14-3 run by the USA.

• Deron Williams might be our designated zone buster. He’s not shooting over it, but he’s able to drive around and through guys and hit the open players. He just went through the paint and found Bron for an open layup.

• Then he turned it over in the open court.

• A three from Wade makes it 80-59, then tips a ball away and leaps over the scorer’s table.

• Ah ha! Kamla just mentioned that they’re announcing the game from the US! First time anyone’s ever acknowledged this.

• 82-63, with 1:50 left in the third.

• D-Wade and Chris Paul connect for an oop, then Wade hits a three in transition. Lithuania empties the bench with 1 minute left in the third. Wade drives and scores again as the third ends. Team USA leads 91-66 after three.

• What’s going right today? Well, I don’t have any stats in front of me, but Team USA’s defense has been feral, almost completely opposite from the Turkey game.

• Um, Wade just hit a three from the corner. No idea how many points he has but, well, it’s a lot.

• Deron Williams just pwned somebody and got to the rim for a lay-up. BTW, Team USA’a blowout lineup is Chris Paul, Deron Williams, D-Wade, Tayshaun Prince and Chris Bosh.

• Oh! D-Wade just did a two-handed windmill on an oop from Chris Paul. Wow. That was ridiculous. If there was ever any doubt, Wade is definitely back. I hear sighs from the Converse PR office in Chicago.

• 98-71, with 7:33 to go in the game. Coach K inserts the human victory cigar, Carlos Boozer, who is really not built for international play — too short to match-up inside and too slow to play on the perimeter.

• Fraschilla keeps talking about how short the international three-point line is by saying for NBA players, the international three is like a “mid-range” jumper. This paints a nice mental picture, but it’s not like the three-point line is 15 feet from the rim, and from the corners it’s almost identical to an NBA three.

• By the way, the USA is ahead 110-78. Starbury went to sleep again.

• Boozer gets a dunk, pushing the lead to 35.

• Kamla tells the story again of how Kobe wanted to shut down Venezuela’s Greivous Vasquez in the Tournament of the Americas last summer. Kamla notes, “Vasquez didn’t have too much in that basketball game.” And the day after that game last year, the LA Times had a similar story about how Kobe was shutting down Vasquez — but I was at that game and Kobe was in foul trouble early and Vasquez ended up leading Venezuela in scoring. I’m just saying…

• 118-84, with 1:01 to go. Michael Redd is running up his scoring average.

• Chris Paul with the dunk! Then with the shot clock running down and a two second differential, CP just dribbles out the shot clock and takes the turnover.

• Final score, 120-84. No stat review or anything, so I can’t tell you who had what, but I can say that D-Wade is back, which might be the most important thing we learned today.