The U.S. national basketball team landed in China and continued thumping foes like it did in Las Vegas over the past year.
In Macau, in tune-ups for the Olympics in Beijing, the Americans belted Lithuania, 120-84, today. Its first game on Chinese soil was a 114-82 thrashing of Turkey.
Nobody should be surprised.
The U.S. pummeled each of the 10 foes it played at last year’s FIBA Americas tournament here at the Thomas & Mack Center, then Canada was the poor foe that was handed a 120-65 scorching a week ago at the Mack.
The U.S. moves on to Shanghai to play 2007 EuroBasket champ Russia on Aug. 3 and Oceania winner Australia on Aug. 5.
Those two opponents should bring cameras and Sharpies, and whatever they want the Americans to sign, to those games.
Oh, LeBron James is back after tweaking his right ankle? Yawn. Dwyane Wade has shown he’s healthy and quite capable of starting. No kidding.
Scribes following the team will no doubt try to devise some cute or keen way of making them interesting, or making their stories worth reading. Good luck.
With Kobe Bryant representing the red, white and blue for the first time and Jason Kidd – who hiked his record against international foes to 41-0 today – running the show, the gold medal will be a slam dunk.
Those two will log their 18 minutes or so, Deron Williams and Chris Paul will dice and slice opponents when they spell Kidd at the point, and coach Mike Krzyzewski will try to divide time equally.
It will be ugly.
Friday, Krzyzewski even called Lithuania a team capable of winning a medal-round game in the Olympics.
We don’t think so, although it’ll be close. We’ll take Greece over Lithuania in the bronze in what will be the most interesting hoops competition in Beijing.
For the U.S., the most intriguing game will be the opener against China, whose fans will go crazy inside Wukesong Indoor Stadium in Beijing on Aug. 10 in the last game of the opening day.
In the gold-medal game, take the Americans and give 40 points.
And we’re being kind.
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