LONDON—There is much Cold War history here, but it is more like the “warm” side of “cold.”
Lithuania has always been the romantic’s version of the Eastern bloc, more European than Soviet, more American in style and temperament. The Lithuanians are the freedom-fighting poets of international hoops, the tie-dyed darlings of the 1992 Olympics and the subject of their own upcoming documentary, “The Other Dream Team.”
On Saturday afternoon, though, Lithuania was something else: A blueprint for a way to beat Team USA.
Maybe. Possibly.
Let’s not go overboard.
But Team USA squeezed out a mere 99-94 victory and trailed 82-80 with just 6:56 left in the game.
Without some late-game heroics by LeBron James — where have we heard that before? — who knows what would’ve happened.
“They kind of took us by surprise,” said U.S. guard Deron Williams. “But it’s good for us to have a game like that where we don’t just blow everyone out.”
That is the predictable response. But what did Lithuania, by no means the second-most talented team in the field, do that enabled it to stay close? And can others replicate it?
Here are a few thoughts.
1st: Don’t be Nigeria, which came in thinking it had no chance, played like it and ended up on the wrong end of an historic 156-73 score on Thursday.
2nd: Close up the driving lanes and make the U.S. shoot threes. That sounds counterintuitive since Team USA made 29 treys against Nigeria. But with players like LeBron and Kobe Bryant, opponents have no chance in a driving-lane game.
3rd: Contest those three-point shots. “We knew we couldn’t do what Nigeria did,” said guard Martynas Pocius. “You have to run at them with your hands up and hope they don’t shoot as high a percentage as they did against Nigeria.”
They didn’t. Lithuania ran at them and the U.S. made only 10-of-33.
4th: Assure that your offensive execution is precise, as Lithuania’s was. Team USA does have terrific defenders — Russell Westbrook comes to mind — but, no matter what they say, the Americans are thinking about the changeover to offense. Opponents can score baskets in the 23rd second of the 24-second clock against the U.S. if it stays patient.
5th: Bang the ball inside, muck up the game, and send the U.S. to the free-throw line if you have to. Because it has so little scoring punch among its big men, Team USA has to go small when it needs scoring. Late in the Lithuania game, it had what one could consider an all-perimeter team of LeBron, Bryant, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony on the floor.
“With a small team, we can get out and pressure a little more,” says Williams, “and on offense it doesn’t hurt us at all.” Okay, but there’s a flip side: Watching Anthony try to guard postup scorers is painful.
6th: Depend on your veterans. There is still a “fright factor” when opponents go up against the U.S. But Lithuania’s NBA veterans, players like Linas Kleiza (game-high 25 points) and Darius Songailia could care less about that.
All that still might not be enough with players like LeBron able to make plays in the stretch.
“What you have to remember is that they are so versatile,” said Kleiza. “They have a lot of ways to beat you.”
But just two days after an 83-point win, there suddenly seem to be a few ways to beat them, too. There was no history lesson given by Lithuania here at the basketball venue, only a contemporary primer.
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