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The US National team easily dismissed the world champion Serbia & Montenegro team 78-60 earlier today in Belgrade. The US played with terrific intensity today in front of the loud and hostile Serbian crowd, correcting many, but not all of the flaws that made them look so poor in the previous two outings on this European exhibition tour so far. The game started off slowly as the Serbians got off to a strong start and we up 7-2 early on. Both teams played strong defense, especially inside the paint, and neither team managed to get much going in the half-court offense. Tim Duncan kept the US in the game in the first quarter, scoring half the team’s 20 points. The US looked for him very well this time around. The Serbians decided to guard him one on one which ended up being a huge mistake as he had little trouble facing the basket and beating his man off the dribble or spotting up for his trademark kiss of the glass from mid-range. Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury again had trouble staying in front of their matchups on the perimeter and were burned again and again by Milos Vujanic and Igor Rakocevic. The Serbians clearly got orders from coach Obradovic to push the ball up the court as much as possible, but this strategy ended up backfiring and lead to many turnovers. The 1st quarter ended 20-17 in favor of the US but that was as close as Serbia and Montenegro got from that point. The US opened the 2nd quarter with the young and exciting lineup of Wade, Lebron James, Anthony, Marion and Stoudemire and essentially put the game away with a breathtaking display of athleticism and energy over a span of 7 minutes. Team USA started off the quarter playing a zone defense and even forced a couple of traveling calls on the confused looking Serbian players after a couple of outstanding sequences of defense, forcing them to run out the 24 second shot clock (same as in the NBA) once and then celebrating together as a team. Every time the ball was in Dwyane Wade’s hands he made it his personal goal to shove the ball down the defense’s throat. Possession after possession ended with a thunderous dunk or easy layup as the Serbians had no way to keep up with the American fast break. The outgoing rookie threesome of Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade played especially well together; moving the ball around in an eye pleasing fashion, playing outstanding perimeter defense and feeding Marion and Stoudemire constantly for easy baskets. Serbia and Montenegro could not score even one point in the 2nd quarter for the first 6 minutes and let up 17 consecutive points in that span. Lebron James had 8 points in the 2nd quarter to finally break out of the slump he was in over the first three games. Overall he had 11 points on 5/6 shooting. Team USA went to the locker-room up 42-26 at the half and Larry Brown must have had a hard time hiding his satisfaction about the way the US spaced the floor and attacked the zone with superb ball movement, along with playing excellent defense in the 2nd quarter. The 2nd half looked like semi-garbage time for the most half as the US went back to business inside with Tim Duncan early on and cruised most of the way while maintaining a 20 points advantage give or take 2 or 4 points either way. Vladimir Radmanovic had an extremely poor outing and tried to shoot his way into the game to no avail. He finished with 4 points on 0-5 shooting from behind the arc and left the court disgusted with himself. Serbia and Montenegro shot very poorly in this game as a team and from the perimeter especially with only one hit out of 14 shots. They also missed 9 of their 26 free throws, as opposed to the sparkling 14/14 from the line for the US. Dejan Bodiroga showed why he is considered by many to be the greatest player to (unfortunately) not step foot on an NBA floor. He is noticeably slower then anyone else but still managed to get to the hoop almost whenever he pleased. He was a bit unlucky with the rim on a few shots, but still finished the game with 14 points. Even at age 31 he is clearly one of the most skilled players in the world. Other then Tim Duncan, Dwyane Wade was probably the most impressive player on the floor today for the Americans. The way he defended the perimeter with intensity and pushed the ball up the floor constantly for an easy athletic finish in transition made the game very easy for Team USA. Unlike the Italians and Germans, Serbia and Montenegro gave too much respect to the US national team and looked a bit intimidated by their athleticism at times. The Americans are looking as if they are finally starting to come together as a team in terms of each player understanding their role on the floor. With everyone playing with such a high level of intensity they showed that the opposing team will have to have an unbelievable shooting game in order to match their incredible speed and athleticism. The next stop on tour for the Americans is Istanbul, Turkey for a tough game against Hedo Turkoglu, Memo Okur and the Turkish national team on Sunday at 2 PM EST. The game will be broadcasted live on ABC. -Jonathan Givony (RealGM/Draftcity.com
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