That is what Giacomo Galindo and Giancarlo Basile were saying as the Italian Olympic basketball team beat Team USA in an exhibition game 95-78.
Italys zones and traps caused the USA big time problems.US has no perimeter shooters and can't play defense.
Italy on offense had no problems moving the ball and getting wide open jumpers all day.In fact they hit 15 tre's.Thats 45 pts.Unreal
US defense cannot stop the great ball movement.All these teams like Spain,Lituania,Argentina,Serbia,Montenegro,etc can shoot and pass.They will all play zones because the whole USA team are all slashers.
Lebron,Carmelo,Odum,MarionWade,Marburry,Boozer,Stoudemiir,etc aren't shooters.Iverson is but not a pure shooter.So pack a zone in,double Duncan and don't let the slashers penetrate the zone.
Also all these teams have played with each other over the yrs so their ball movement is excellant creating open shots on offense.
Brown has 2 defensive players on his team.Duncan and Marion.And that might not be enough to win the gold.
I'm not ridiculing Brown and the US team.Most of our players didn't want to play in Athens,so this is not our"dream team".But were are 109 -2 in Olympic games.
And the world has caught up with us somewhat.
Italy won today w/o one NBA player.West Germany beat Italy by 8 with Kirk the other day.
Spain is tough.Lituania is loaded.Serbia is solid.Argentina beat us in the World Champs in 2002 already.
Could be a rough time in games next week.I know its just a scrimmage and the US might have taken the Italians lightly.But there are some real obstacles this team needs to overcome.
Today Italy won.Giancarlo yelled to Giacomo as the game ended "dove carmelo e Lebron"..."where's Carmelo and lebron"...I hope they show up next week.
And Giancarlo and Giacomo had 28 and 25 pts today.Most from downtown....from the Via Venito
Italys zones and traps caused the USA big time problems.US has no perimeter shooters and can't play defense.
Italy on offense had no problems moving the ball and getting wide open jumpers all day.In fact they hit 15 tre's.Thats 45 pts.Unreal
US defense cannot stop the great ball movement.All these teams like Spain,Lituania,Argentina,Serbia,Montenegro,etc can shoot and pass.They will all play zones because the whole USA team are all slashers.
Lebron,Carmelo,Odum,MarionWade,Marburry,Boozer,Stoudemiir,etc aren't shooters.Iverson is but not a pure shooter.So pack a zone in,double Duncan and don't let the slashers penetrate the zone.
Also all these teams have played with each other over the yrs so their ball movement is excellant creating open shots on offense.
Brown has 2 defensive players on his team.Duncan and Marion.And that might not be enough to win the gold.
I'm not ridiculing Brown and the US team.Most of our players didn't want to play in Athens,so this is not our"dream team".But were are 109 -2 in Olympic games.
And the world has caught up with us somewhat.
Italy won today w/o one NBA player.West Germany beat Italy by 8 with Kirk the other day.
Spain is tough.Lituania is loaded.Serbia is solid.Argentina beat us in the World Champs in 2002 already.
Could be a rough time in games next week.I know its just a scrimmage and the US might have taken the Italians lightly.But there are some real obstacles this team needs to overcome.
Today Italy won.Giancarlo yelled to Giacomo as the game ended "dove carmelo e Lebron"..."where's Carmelo and lebron"...I hope they show up next week.
And Giancarlo and Giacomo had 28 and 25 pts today.Most from downtown....from the Via Venito
