U.S. defeats Spain for the gold

The United States men's basketball team just finished a perfect Olympics with a fabulous 118-107 victory over Spain, giving the Americans their first gold medal in a major international tournament since the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Let me extend one final [thank] you to NBC for its horrendously confusing schedules. When I checked its online listings late last night, I saw that the gold medal game would run from 1:30 to 3:30 a.m. Mountain time. (Even put in my cable company and everything.) When I woke up at 1:30 Mountain time, you guessed it, the U.S. was holding a 69-61 halftime lead and I'd missed Dwyane Wade's impressive first half. Great. Of course, NBC's Olympic website still says the game starts at 1:30.

At least we got the matchup I wanted. Last week I got an e-mail from my brother, a missionary in Spain, who was ecstatic about the United States' 37-point victory over them in the opening round. He said that ever since he got there he's had to hear the Spanish jawing about how their team, which won the 2006 World Championships, is better than ours. Now it's his turn to gloat.

Anyway, the second half got off to a terrifying start for fans of the U.S. Spain quickly cut the lead to four points, then held it in the four-to-six range for several minutes as they out-hustled and out-shot the Americans, who were struggling to get any decent looks. The game had all the feeling of a classic upset, where the underdog just kept hanging and hanging and wouldn't go away. I began to worry that, despite how well they'd done to this point, my fears about our team's makeup were actually well-placed.

The U.S. built the lead to as much as ten late in the third, but lost it almost as quickly. A three-pointer by Spain's Rudy Fernandez cut the lead to 91-89 with 8:13 remaining in the game. But that's when Kobe Bryant, long considered the missing ingredient from our last few international teams, took over.

Bryant drove down the right side for a tough shot to put the lead back to four. The next time up the court, he drove and found a wide-open Deron Williams on the left, who canned a three. Bryant next found Dwight Howard down low for a power dunk, then responded to another Fernandez three with one of his own to make the lead nine points with just over six minutes to play.

Just before the three-minute mark, Kobe hit another three and was fouled shooting. He just stood at the three-point line, brought up his finger, and shhhed everybody. This is exactly the kind of thing that normally makes me hate the guy, but tonight I finally get why Lakers fans love him so much. Naturally, he made the free throw for the four-point play.

The U.S. made some more free throws at the end, but the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt. The Americans finished with a high-scoring victory (225 points in just a forty-minute game, remember) and brought the gold back where it belongs.

Postscript: This will be the last post on this blog. Thanks for reading!