Nightmare for US NBA Stars

It was supposed to be a campaign for redemption but the US Dream Team, made up of all-star pros, floundered in the hunt for gold at the World Basketball Championships in Saitama.

The US hasn’t struck paydirt in the quadrennial tournament since 1994 when Shaquille O’Neal, Joe Dumars and Reggie Miller saw action for the Stars and Stripes.

After the US tumbled to sixth place in 2002 and dropped to third at the Athens Olympics two years ago, there was a determined effort to regain American pride in the sport that was invented in a YMCA training school in Massachusetts in 1891.

The first US Dream Team was formed in 1992 after the Federation Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) cleared the way for pros to play in the Olympics and the World Championships. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan formed the backbone of the star-studded team, coached by Chuck Daly, that took the gold at the Barcelona Olympics.

The second Dream Team won the world title in 1994 with Don Nelson at the helm then Lenny Wilkens coached the third version, powered by O’Neal and Karl Malone, to the gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Rudy Tomjanovich piloted the fourth Dream Team – starring Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd and Vince Carter – to the 2000 Sydney Olympics gold.

The winning streak was snapped in 2002 as George Karl’s fifth Dream Team fell to sixth at the World Championships despite a lineup bannered by Paul Pierce, Shawn Marion and Mike Finley. Larry Brown’s sixth Dream Team settled for the bronze at the 2004 Athens Olympics with Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson.

Last March, US cage officials announced the formation of a 23-man pool from which to choose players for the national team until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The idea was to generate chemistry among the cagers over a two-year period.

Duke University’s Mike Krzyzewski was picked to coach the US in Saitama and became the first collegiate mentor to call the shots for a Dream Team. He was presumed to be more familiar with the nuances of the international game than coaches in the pros.

In choosing the final 12 to play for Dream 7, Krzyzewski retained only James, Wade and Anthony from the Athens Olympic cast and appointed them co-captains to tone down their tendency to upstage each other. Krzyzewski surrounded the trio with role players including Shane Battier and Elton Brand who were his boys at Duke.

The prognosis was Dream 7 would be unbeatable in Saitama because a lot of thought went behind assembling the team.

But as Greece showed in dealing the US a 101-95 drubbing last Friday, the Americans will need more than a well-thought-out plan to march back to the top. They need to understand playing NBA-style hoops just won’t do in the international game.

Here are seven reasons why Greece beat Dream 7.

• The Greeks were more cohesive. Nine of coach Panagiotis Giannakis‚ charges played on the team that took fifth at the Athens Olympics and 10 saw action on the title squad at the European Championships last year. Familiarity was evident as Greece played more team ball than the US.

• Krzyzewski had no adjustments in defense. The Americans went man-to-man from start to finish. Greece took them apart with classic pick-and-rolls. When the US dropped back to defend the area near the basket, the Greeks bombed from outside. The quickness of Greece’s big men left the US a step behind in drives to the basket. Curiously, there was never an attempt to press or trap.

• The US couldn’t break down the zone. With a stationary offense, the Americans found it difficult to penetrate the zone and settled for contested shots from the perimeter as the shot clock ran out.

• The US played too much one-on-one. The Americans may be more athletic than the Greeks in that they jump higher and their hang time is longer. But the Greeks were more polished in terms of playing skills – they all knew how to dribble, move without the ball, shoot the three and cover for each other.

• The US lacked patience. With the Greeks methodically running patterns on nearly every possession, the Americans lost focus. The US grew impatient trying to disrupt the offense and couldn’t wait to score on the other end. The impatience was magnified in transition.

• The US struggled in adjusting to the international game. The pros are used to more timeouts, more fouls before disqualification, no ball interference whatsoever above the rim and more minutes a quarter. They seemed lost when Greece took control of the game by dictating the tempo in the third period.

• The US shot itself in the foot. The Americans missed 14 free throws and lost by six. Anthony, Wade and James were a combined 13-of-23 from the line. James was 0-of-4 from the three-point arc and point guard Chris Paul, who averaged 8.7 assists in his first three games, had only two dishes. Brand was scoreless for the first time in the tournament.

Krzyzewski, 59, never fired up his troops when Greece began to pull away. He was too laid back. Coach K also had his lapses, particularly in benching Dwight Howard late in the game. Howard had 10 points and seven rebounds in 13 minutes but never got the call down the stretch.

What embarrassed the US was 6-9, 255-pound Greek center Sofoklis Schortsianitis’ dominance in the interior. Schortsianitis, 21, was the Los Angeles Clippers second round pick in the 2003 NBA draft but never made it to the majors. The overweight slotman, whose mother is from Cameroon, shot 6-of-7 from the field and scored 14 points.

Three other Greeks played key roles in trouncing the US. Theodoros Papaloukas compiled 12 assists, Vasileios Spanoulis (who will play for the Houston Rockets next season) erupted for 22 points and Michail Kakiouzis scored 15 points in 27 minutes.

Dream 7 was a terrible nightmare for the US last Friday.