By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Despite struggling in some aspects of the game, particularly on defense, Team USA finished the first stage of the Olympic Games basketball tournament with a 5-0 record. Ahead of the quarterfinals, coach Mike Krzyzewski notes his players’ winning track, while hoping for an improvement in the areas his team hurts.
“The thing they’ve done consistent is they’ve won”, he answered when being asked what his players has done consistently well during the tournament so far. “And at the end of the day, no one will ask you anything else except if you won. While you’re approaching that winning the whole thing, you’re asked a whole bunch of other things. I think we’re getting better offensively and we have to get better defensively. Just a succinct comment in that regard. But the fact that we’re getting better offensively is a huge plus, because I think we can make proper adjustments defensively to get better. And obviously we’re going to have to play better defense, there’s no question about that.”
In the match against France, Krzyzewski decided to include Klay Thompson in his starting five. The Warriors player proceeded to make his best performance in the Olympics, scoring 30 points. “You don’t have to think twice about not just starting him, but he’s one of the best players in the world. The few times in his life when he’s not shooting well, which are few, he always plays defense well and he always competes. That’s what makes him such a great two-way player, that’s what makes him one of the great players in basketball. We’re lucky to have him on our team.”
Once again team USA faced problems against its opponents’ pick n’ roll plays. What are the coach’s thoughts on the matter? “At times I liked our pick-and-roll defense and at times I didn’t like our pick-and-roll defense. I will say this: we’re not playing against a bad team. We’re playing against one of the best teams in the world and these guys are really good. And we played really well to go up double digits a number of times in the game. I don’t think there’s any pressure on them, so you have to put even more pressure on them. They were probably going to be the third-place team, unless we fell flat on our face, so you’re playing loose. You’re playing free. The kid Huertel played a great game. So, if you have just a little bit of a let-up, they took advantage of it. But our team was ready. I don’t know if ferocious, I’m not sure if we can do that, but I think we can play better on the defensive end and I think that’s what we’re going to attempt to do.”