Depending on who you talk to, the U.S. Men’s Basketball team could be sitting at 0-2 ATS right now. They only covered about half of the spread while beating Angola on Tuesday. And everyone seems to have a different story for their 31 point win over China, depending on what line you got. In these trying times for our country, I certainly wouldn’t expect anybody to root against our boys. But for the sake of one’s finances, you may lose just a bit of your patriotism for their next game against Greece,
The “Redeem Team” has cruised to a couple easy victories thus far. Now the road to gold gets harder. As most of us are on our way to another gratifying day of work at the mines on Thursday, the United States will be tipping off against Greece at 8 am. I think that Greece’s intro music should be “I Need a Gyro” by Bonnie Tyler, but maybe that’s just me.
We are just two years removed from the 2006 FIBA World Championship games when the Greeks joined the growing list of unforeseeable upsets to topple the Americans, 101-95. The U.S. has six returning members from that squad: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard. Surely those guys will be looking for some revenge. I wonder if they will recall how physical the Greek team plays? Or how well they run the pick and roll, which the American team has a tough time defending? Probably not.
Greece has seven players returning from that upset team, including guard Vasileios Spanoulis who put up 22 in that game to lead a balanced attack. Some other returning players from that game: Sofoklis Schortsanitis (14 pts), Dimitris Diamantidis (12 pts) and Theororuos Papaloukas (12 assists). Not on either of those teams: Sotorios Passias, my Greek friend who I grew up playing hoops with. Since he couldn’t even make his Greek Orthodox Church league, I guess he had zero chance of making the Olympics.
Spanoulis has been up to his old tricks again this go-round. In their loss to Spain, he scored 15, followed by Diamantidis’ 14. Then in Tuesday’s 87-64 victory over Dirk Nowitzki’s German team, Spanoulis was fantastic scoring 23 points, followed by Papaloukas’ 15. Spanoulis has called himself “the Tracy McGrady of Greece”. I found this funny because I sometimes call myself the Rony Seikaly of America.
The Greek Tracy McGrady
Speaking of Nowitzki, the pounding Greek defense frustrated poor Dirk so much in their game that he earned himself an unsportsmanlike foul for losing his cool. If Nowitzki showed some passion like that in the NBA, the Mavericks might actually have had some postseason success.
The U.S. has been on auto-pilot in beating the hometown Chinese team by 31 and Angola by 21. Dwyane Wade has led the way in scoring, putting up 19 both games. The biggest addition to this unit from the last time they met Greece, is of course, Kobe Bryant. I’ve always been amazed that he would participate in any of these types of events. Kobe doesn’t play well with anybody, let alone fellow stars. Would anyone be surprised if he started whining to the press about the number of shots he’s getting? I highly doubt it.
Throw in the fact that Coach Mike Krzyzewski will probably not allow his team to run anyone out of the building if the game were to get out of hand, and Greece is the way to go.
It has been reported that the opening line for this game was in the low 30’s. Common sense has since kicked in, and you can now catch it at 23 at Matchbook. But Greek team backers can find it even lower at The Greek, where it is 22. And wouldn’t it be fun to tell your friends that you won on the Greeks at The Greek? Don’t answer that…
The “Redeem Team” has cruised to a couple easy victories thus far. Now the road to gold gets harder. As most of us are on our way to another gratifying day of work at the mines on Thursday, the United States will be tipping off against Greece at 8 am. I think that Greece’s intro music should be “I Need a Gyro” by Bonnie Tyler, but maybe that’s just me.
We are just two years removed from the 2006 FIBA World Championship games when the Greeks joined the growing list of unforeseeable upsets to topple the Americans, 101-95. The U.S. has six returning members from that squad: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard. Surely those guys will be looking for some revenge. I wonder if they will recall how physical the Greek team plays? Or how well they run the pick and roll, which the American team has a tough time defending? Probably not.
Greece has seven players returning from that upset team, including guard Vasileios Spanoulis who put up 22 in that game to lead a balanced attack. Some other returning players from that game: Sofoklis Schortsanitis (14 pts), Dimitris Diamantidis (12 pts) and Theororuos Papaloukas (12 assists). Not on either of those teams: Sotorios Passias, my Greek friend who I grew up playing hoops with. Since he couldn’t even make his Greek Orthodox Church league, I guess he had zero chance of making the Olympics.
Spanoulis has been up to his old tricks again this go-round. In their loss to Spain, he scored 15, followed by Diamantidis’ 14. Then in Tuesday’s 87-64 victory over Dirk Nowitzki’s German team, Spanoulis was fantastic scoring 23 points, followed by Papaloukas’ 15. Spanoulis has called himself “the Tracy McGrady of Greece”. I found this funny because I sometimes call myself the Rony Seikaly of America.
The Greek Tracy McGrady
Speaking of Nowitzki, the pounding Greek defense frustrated poor Dirk so much in their game that he earned himself an unsportsmanlike foul for losing his cool. If Nowitzki showed some passion like that in the NBA, the Mavericks might actually have had some postseason success.
The U.S. has been on auto-pilot in beating the hometown Chinese team by 31 and Angola by 21. Dwyane Wade has led the way in scoring, putting up 19 both games. The biggest addition to this unit from the last time they met Greece, is of course, Kobe Bryant. I’ve always been amazed that he would participate in any of these types of events. Kobe doesn’t play well with anybody, let alone fellow stars. Would anyone be surprised if he started whining to the press about the number of shots he’s getting? I highly doubt it.
Throw in the fact that Coach Mike Krzyzewski will probably not allow his team to run anyone out of the building if the game were to get out of hand, and Greece is the way to go.
It has been reported that the opening line for this game was in the low 30’s. Common sense has since kicked in, and you can now catch it at 23 at Matchbook. But Greek team backers can find it even lower at The Greek, where it is 22. And wouldn’t it be fun to tell your friends that you won on the Greeks at The Greek? Don’t answer that…
These guys would’ve been favored by 60
