Greece 101, U.S. 95

Greece 101, U.S. 95

By BRIAN MAHONEY, AP Basketball Writer
September 1, 2006

SAITAMA, Japan (AP) -- Fed up with its recent failures, the United States assembled a new program with new plan.

The end result was all too familiar.

Greece used a sizzling stretch of shooting across the middle two quarters to turn a 12-point deficit into a 14-point lead, and beat the Americans 101-95 Friday in the semifinals of the world championships.

"To lose any game is a shock to us," U.S. star Carmelo Anthony said. "We came in with the mentality to win the game and the gold medal."

Instead, the best Anthony can do now is add another bronze to his collection.

Greece (8-0) can earn a world title to go with the European championship it won in 2005 with a victory over Spain in Sunday's gold medal game. Spain (8-0) beat Argentina 75-74 on Friday night.

"They played like a champion plays," U.S. forward Shane Battier said of Greece.

The Americans will have to wait at least two more years to remember what that feels like.

Done in again by their inept 3-point shooting -- and they weren't much better from the foul line -- the Americans will fall short of a championship in a major international tournament for the third straight time since winning gold at the 2000 Olympics.

The Greeks -- with no current NBA players on their roster -- danced in a circle at halfcourt after their victory.

"Big players play big games," said guard Theodoros Papaloukas, the MVP of the European final who had 12 assists Friday. "And today I think we played very good."

The U.S. (7-1) will return to the court Saturday against Argentina (7-1), hoping to match the bronze medal it left Athens with in 2004.

"Those guys are hurting," said USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo, who was put in charge of the program after a sixth-place finish in the 2002 worlds preceded the disappointment in Athens. "It's probably a better thing we have to come back tomorrow and play again instead of sitting on this for two days."

Anthony scored 27 points for the Americans, who couldn't overcome their 32 percent shooting from 3-point range or 59 percent from the foul line. Dwyane Wade added 19 and LeBron James had 17, but the three U.S. captains were unable to make up for their disappointment from Athens.

Vassilis Spanoulis, bound for the Houston Rockets, scored 22 points for Greece. Mihalis Kakiouzis added 15 and 6-foot-10 Sofoklis Schortsianitis -- nicknamed "Baby Shaq" -- added 14, shooting 6-of-7.

"Basketball is not just about dribbling and shooting," said Greece coach Panagiotis Yannakis, who took a congratulatory call from Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis after the game. "You can come off the bench with a clear mind and give the best of your talent and that's what our players did today."

Continuously burning the Americans' poor defense against the pick-and-roll, the Greeks shot 63 percent (35-of-56) from the field and made 31 of 44 shots over the final three periods.

"We didn't make the right adjustments," U.S. center Chris Bosh said. "They ran the same play. We made it easy for them."

The U.S. hasn't even played for a world championship since winning the last of its three titles in Toronto in 1994. Mike Krzyzewski -- who was looking for gold after winning bronze with the 1990 team -- and a few American players walked to midcourt to congratulate the Greeks, while most of the U.S. roster quickly headed to the locker room.

The Americans, who put together a national team program this year for the first time, now will be forced to qualify for the 2008 Olympics next summer in the FIBA Americas tournament in Venezuela.

"This one hurts," said Colangelo, who assembled the team. "We had the gold medal as our goal and anything short is disappointing. We go back to work and get ready for qualifying next summer."

The U.S. seemed in control after Joe Johnson's 3-pointer gave the Americans a 33-21 lead with about 6 1/2 minutes left in the second quarter. It was around then that James told his teammates on the bench: "They don't know what to do."

Well, they figured it out in a hurry.

Greece scored nine straight points, pulling within three on Papaloukas' drive with 3:51 left and forcing Krzyzewski to call a timeout. Dwight Howard converted a three-point play, but the Greeks answered with a 13-2 surge, featuring eight points from Schortsianitis, to open a 43-38 lead and force Krzyzewski to call a second timeout.

Greece hit nine straight shots -- its only miss in the last 5 minutes was a heave from halfcourt as time expired -- and led 45-41 at halftime. The Greeks shot 56 percent (15-of-27) in the half.

The Americans were 2-of-10 from behind the arc -- after going 10-for-40 in their quarterfinal victory over Germany -- and trailed at the break for only the second time in the tournament. Italy had a nine-point cushion in a group play game.

Greece kept it up in the third quarter, hitting 14 of its 18 shots, including all four 3-pointers in the first 5 minutes. Kostas Tsartsaris' 3-pointer with 5:45 left in the period gave the Greeks a 65-51 lead -- the biggest deficit the U.S. faced in the tournament.

After shooting 4-of-12 in the first quarter, Greece was 25-of-33 (76 percent) in the second and third and led 77-65 heading to the final period.

"It seemed like they didn't miss the whole third quarter," Wade said.

Anthony, Wade and James combined for the first 18 U.S. points in the quarter, and the Americans eventually got as close as 95-91 on Kirk Hinrich's 3 with 36 seconds to play. But the U.S. missed its final two attempts from behind the arc, capping a 9-of-28 night.

As I've said many times before...the US does not play as a "team" and will never win gold again in World competition until they learn to do so...

"a few American players walked to midcourt to congratulate the Greeks, while most of the U.S. roster quickly headed to the locker room."

Shameful, go congratulate the guys. I guess D. Wade didn't get all the calls like he did in the NBA Finals.

I think the NBA needs to seriously look at making some major rule changes. Its embarrassing to the league that is supposed to be the best in the world puts basically an NBA all-star team on the floor against a country that doesn't have even 1 NBA player and gets beat. They need to change the rules to closer assimilate the international rules and the NBA needs to start emphasizing defense again which has gotten really laxed in the last 15 years or so. They also need to stop calling so many touch fouls against star players because it has made some of those players expect to go to the line every time they drive to the basket if somebody so much as breathes on them.

The US is never going to win until we get a generation who learns to shoot again.

We can out-athlete most teams but if we're put in a position where people have to make shots, we can't do it. Call it the love of the dunk or flash or whatever, but give me a team that can hit an outside shot and make a decent percentage of free throws and you can beat them.

We're headed in the right direction, I think we have some more players who are right for the international style, but we're still lacking a bit.

They can jump from the foul line and dunk, but can't make a foul shot. I don't know how many players are on the roster, but we don't need an entire team of "great athletes that are good basketball players". We need to add some "great basketball players that are good athletes". In other words, add two or three pure shooters to the team.

" "Big players play big games," said guard Theodoros Papaloukas. "


Was John Madden their coach?

Pretty darn disappointing.

yes it is but what do you expect...the NBA spoils the guys like brats into thinking they are all God's gift to basketball when in fact they are not. If there are many smart GM's and head coaches out there they will keep recruiting players for out of the country and overseas because most of those guys have a better understanding of what basketball is all about. its surprising that most of the league isn't made up of foreigners with the way things are going. i guess its just a matter of time. miami heat world champs? NBA champs yeah...world champs, I don't think so. Talk about guys that can't shoot, Miami is the poster child team for that.

NBA is a waste of time, players are so wrapped up in the dunk game that they never learn how to play the game, bring back the teams of the 80s, when you had players that knew how to play above and below the rim.

Teams of this day and age wouldn't stand a chance against the 80's Lakers, Celts or Sixers for that matter.

a LOT more complicated than that

USA team checklist

Win the gold in hockey-strike 1
Win the world Baseball championships-strike 2
Win the World Cup-strike three
eh.....whatta mess

i don't think we were really expected to win hockey or soccer

baseball and basketball dropped the ball on this one...baseball got outplayed, Mike Krzyzewski and the committee lost it for the U.S.

Weren't expected to win soccer, but odds were that hockey was going to be USA vs Canada, and they both flopped.

Same thing with the World Cup.. Meh. Just meh.

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i don't think we were really expected to win hockey or soccer

baseball and basketball dropped the ball on this one...baseball got outplayed, Mike Krzyzewski and the committee lost it for the U.S.

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Can't put it all on the coach...they said the same thing about Larry Brown. Brown and Coach K both are great coaches. Coaches coach and players play. If they can't shoot jumpers and free throws by now and play defense on the pick and roll than they never will. If its anybody's fault other than the players I would say its more the NBA itself than anything else.

i wasn't talking about the coaching part of it (even though you'd think one of the top college coaches would recognize how to defend a screen-and-roll) i was talking about the selection of the players (hence coach K AND the committee members)

as much as i hate to say it J.J. Redick is tailor-made for a competition like this...if coach K was gonna take any of his Dukies it should have been Redick...Battier over Bruce Bowen??? come on, are you serious? and in what way is Elton Brand good for international competition?

Brad Mller? what the heck, pick the team according to needs...looks to me like coach K kept half the ACC but left out some people who would have been vital to winning the tournament...he HAD to know the rest of the world would zone us to death and make us shoot outside

btw, i think it was a wise move to bring in a college coach who had some respectability but also didn't have anything to gain like an NBA coach would

coach K did a good job with those guys in terms of making them get out and play defensively b/c we needed transition buckets to win that tournament and the only way to do that with them playing zone is to get out on fast breaks and blow games open...Greece is no slouch, the rest of the world is catching up...we do not suck, we do not have attitudes and yes we can play defense [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

let coach K coach again, but let someone else pick the players...maybe Mark Few, Rick Barnes, Bruce Pearl, Roy Williams and the like...or a panel of retired coaches

I agree the player selection was suspect. Redick should not have only made the team he probably should have been a starter. Elton Brand is a good defender...definitely keep him. Adam Morrisson is a guy that should get alot of time in international play as well. I think they need to get some older players as well. I think Bruce Bowen would've been excellent as long as he was given good minutes.

Well atleast they did come back and beat Argentina to get the Bronze. Its a sad state for Team USA that a win like that now has to be considered an upset.

The rest of the world isn't "catching up"...anyone who has been paying attention to international basketball over the last decade or so will notice that the foreigners have pretty much "caught up."

"Greece is no slouch"

There not a slouch but they don't have a single NBA player on the roster and Spain just blew them out by about 30 without Pau Gasol.

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Redick should not have only made the team he probably should have been a starter.

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Redick had a back injury he was trying to heal over the summer and was not able to try out for the team. Coach K invited Redick to try out for the team but the doctors advised him to give the back some rest before the NBA season began. He probably would have made the team had he been healthy.