USA vs Russia Preview
The 2010 FIBA World Basketball Championship is well underway in Istanbul Turkey and in classic cold war fashion we’ve got the United States of America facing off with Russia in a quarter finals matchup. If the Russians want to win this one on Thursday, they’re going to have to fight hard.
Mike Krzyzewski is the coach of the USA and he’s got a solid team under him. With players like Lamar Odom at centre and Tyson Chandler guarding against the Russian Alexander (Sasha) Olegovich Kaun and the recent New York Knicks inductee, 7ft 1in, Timofey Mozgov; experts and laymen agree, this is going to be a lopsided game.
The US just ran through Angola without breaking a sweat on Monday and now they’ve got their eyes set on the former communist red menace. With a dangerous transition game and incredible speed the Americans feel they don’t need to worry about Russia’s dominating size, and pundits agree. If the boys in blue can’t score in the paint they’ll just have to take the outside jumper, and that won’t be a problem for the expert marksmen team. Their shooting game is going to have to be a paramount element if they hope to topple the larger more powerful Russian defense. In their first round game against Angola they scored 18 three-pointers.
Strong defending at the post is going to be the final nail in the Russian coffin. When asked what he thought of this, Tyson Chandler said, “The team is really going to need me defensively if they force it down low. Most of the European teams we’ve played so far have had big guys that float around the perimeter, but this is more of a traditional team with big guys that bang, set picks, roll to the basket, rebound, do dirty work down low.”
Offensive turnovers are going to be very important for both teams. If the Americans can manage to move the ball as they have been during this tournament then it should be a simple victory. The USA had five turnovers in their game against Angola, if they can repeat that feat then there will be no stopping them. But what is it that Russia coach David Blatt has to bring to the table?
The Russians are a physical team, they have size, they have mass, and they have strength. The Russians have a respectable 5-1 record against the USA’s 6-0. Their post player Timofey Mozgov is currently their most dangerous offensive weapon with an average of 12.5 points per game. Sasha Kaun has a respectable 11.5. Another asset on the Russian’s side is Andrey Vorontsevich who is leading the team in rebounds averaging 6.8 per game. Anton Ponkrashov is Russia’s star guard this year, he’s great on the assist and, with his speed, is a strong counter asset for Russia’s transition defense.
Russia’s defense will have to be aggressive if they can hope to compete, they’ll have to help each other and go for a more complex position and movement based defending scheme as opposed to something man-to-man and less systemic.
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