The Wong Blog

Alright, let’s get this over with. Thoughts on the men’s basketball gold medal game between the USA and Spain…

I was rooting hard for the USA because the Spanish are, well, smelly racists. After the Redeem Team initially beat Spain by 37 points in the preliminary rounds, I was hoping they would double that margin of victory in the gold-medal game. Unfortunately, the game was closer than I had hoped, mainly because there’s no “D” in USA (or “Kobe Bryant” and “LeBron James,” for that matter). NBC commentator Doug Collins, a member of the 1972 USA Olympic basketball team that lost to the Soviets in controversial fashion, kept excoriating the team throughout the broadcast for their lack of weak-side defense. He should have lambasted them for their total lack of defense in general. The irony is that the team was sort of playing for Collins, too, trying to redeem his Olympic experience. (How? By letting the Spanish guards carve you up?)

Anyway, I kept a running diary, but it’s mostly boring. Here’s an abbreviated version…

Quarter 1…

Second string point guard Ricky Rubio Jonas is starting in place of the injured Juan Calderon. Apparently Calderon slanted his eyes back so much that now he can’t see. Shame, shame. I hope the US slices Spain up like a matador fighting a bull.

Jason Kidd scores on a layup. Oh yeah, you know Team USA means business if Jason Kidd is scoring.

Uh-oh, LaBron James picks up his second foul. Unlike the NBA, you only get five fouls under FIBA rules (game’s only 40 minutes). Way to debut those “gold-medal” shoes, LaBron. Should be renamed the “early foul trouble” shoe. Just do it—foul!

Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim is one of the coaches for Team USA. You think he’s there solely to keep an eye on Carmelo Anthony? Cuz you know, Anthony will kill a snitch.

The fourth Jonas Brother, Ricky Rubio, is coming back in after his hyper-extended wrist is taped and the third-string point guard picks up his third foul. But here’s the real question: will he still be able to play the guitar? I hope not.

Marc Gasol makes a nice spin move and scores on a reverse layup. He looks like one of those neandrethals on those GEICO commercials. I hate those commercials. And GEICO.

One of the refs is from Finland. Speaking of Finland, did you know that at the annual Kansallinen Kokoomus convention, DC wore a T-shirt that said, “I love the Sosialidemokraattisia Puole!!” Terrible…

At the end of the first quarter, Team USA leads 38-31. If this pace keeps up, they’ll score 150 points! In 40 minutes! Yikes. Defense has gone out the window…

Quarter 2…

Marc Gasol throws an elbow at Carmelo Anthony and commits an offensive foul. Dwight Howard retaliates by horse-collaring brother Pau and gets the Olympic equivalent of a flagrant. Pau misses BOTH free throws. Memo to Mitch Kupchak: trade this guy RIGHT NOW—I want Kwame Brown back. (What!?)

The Spanish bench throws a towel on the floor as Kobe dunks on a fastbreak. Racist AND unsportsmanlike. Shame, shame.

Dwight Howard picks up his second foul by choking out a Spaniard while going for an offensive rebound. A decent foul, if you ask me.

LeBron drives the lane, Kobe calls for it on the wing, LeBron ignores him, lays it up…and one!

Kobe switches on defense, but loses his man, who scores. Kobe sulks, but because everyone has already gone to the other end of the court, must suffer the indignity of throwing in the ball, too. Kobe needs to step it up.

Ironic that the racist Spanish’s uniforms are provided by Li-Ning, the Chinese company founded by the gymnast of the same name—the same guy who lit the torch during the opening ceremonies.

End of the half, US is up 69-61.

Quarter 3…

Hmm, US starts the second half with two turnovers, and Spain comes back with one of their own, plus a foul. Sloppy play.

Kobe tries to draw a foul by shooting into a defender. Doesn’t work. He’d get that call in the NBA, but this isn’t the NBA.

Kobe drives the basket, it looks like he scores and is fouled, but traveling is called—correctly.

LeBron dribbles along the sideline. Kobe calls for the ball on the other side. LeBron ignores him AGAIN, firing a pass into Dwight Howard, who powers it in and dunks.

Kobe bricks a three.

Juan Carlos Navarro is dribbling around the USA guards at will. JUAN CARLOS NAVARRO!

Marc Gasol’s nickname is “The Tank.” He’s rampaging around the key like it’s Tiananmen Square.

There’s so much hacking going on, you’d think Public Security was dropping in on a Falun Gong rally.

Kobe keeps calling for it on the wing, but no teammate will feed it to him. Interesting: no love for Kobe. What’s going on? Wade hits a mid-range jumper.

The Chinese mop up the floors with towels—couldn’t they afford mops?

Juan Carlos Navarro blows by Deron Williams for a layup at the buzzer. He is carving Team USA’s guards.

End of the third quarter, and Team USA leads 91-82.

Quarter 4…

Jimenez picks up his third foul on Kobe. Jimenez is the first person I’ve seen sporting a soul patch on his head.

Kobe dribbles and misses a three.

Pau Gasol alley-oop and a three pointer by Rudy Fernandez and Spain is down by just two (two!), 91-89. NBC commentator Doug Collins is apoplectic about weakside defense.

There are Spanish cross-dressers in the crowd.

Kobe finally hits a tough runner.

Kobe dribble kicks to Deron Williams for a three. Hmm, maybe that’s what he was trying to do all game long, waiting on the wings: waiting for the drive and kick.

Kobe throws an assist to Dwight Howard for a monster jam.

Rudy Fernandez hits an open three as someone misses their assignment. Where’s the D???

Kobe hits a three in the corner, coming up huge—finally! Kobe’s madness suddenly transforms into genius. Like that, Kobe is going from goat to hero. But then…

Kobe goes for a reach around steal at the top of the key on Rudy Fernandez, who drives the lane and promptly posterizes Dwight Howard with a dunk. Doug Collins rips Kobe for leaving his teammate out to dry.

Kobe shoots a three from Tianjin…and misses.

103-94, 4:30 left to go.

Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, LaBron James, Chris Paul, and Chris Bosh are on the floor. These are the five players Coach K trusts with the gold medal and the reputation of USA Basketball on the line.

Rudy Fernandez fouls out as Kobe sinks a three! A huge three pointer and a huge foul as Spain’s MVP fouls out! The brilliance/madness of Kobe Bryant again!

Kobe launches an ill-advised three that misses, Jimenez/Spain sinks a three on the other side; Dwayne Wade hits a three as Collins just commented that no one is comfortable shooting threes except for Kobe. Let’s be honest: Kobe’s comfortable shooting just about anything—a three, a four, a gun, heroin, etc. Wait, Wade has 27 points!? Unquestionably the MVP of the Olympic tournament for Team USA.

Jimenez misses a three, Bryant rolls in a runner in the lane, and Spain misses their own runner on the other end. Spain starts fouling. Chris Paul is fouled, and is 13 of 14 in free throws for the tournament. Nearly automatic. Carlos Boozer is 13 of 14 in supportive cheers from the bench.

Spain gets hit with foul for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the fourth Jonas Brother gets hit with a tecnical. Kobe sinks the two technicals. During a US timeout, Kobe pours water on Krzyzewski.

Here come the USA scrubs: Michael Redd and Carlos Boozer.

Chants of USA, USA, USA…

The USA prevails, 118-107. Not…good…enough…

Some thoughts from Day 14…

Women’s 4x400m relay semifinals: I don’t know if there were injuries or they couldn’t afford to bring more people, but Great Britain’s relay team for this semi sounds like it was patched together at the very last second. In consists of 400m gold medalist Christine Ohuruogu (great!), some heptathlete (okay…), an 800m specialist (what?), and what looks to be a pre-op tranny (it has a package!). Yikes. They qualify for the finals, but barely.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge my sponsors. These Beijing Olympics posts were brought to you by the good folks of Pepsicola, Mastercard, Burger King, Lowe’s, Proctor & Gamble, Infiniti Motors, Apple Computers, Timex, Washington Mutual, the American Broadcasting Company, Snow Queen Vodka, Smith & Wesson, and Jesus Christ. Thank you.

Men’s Soccer Gold Medal Match—Argentina vs. Nigeria…

The soccer commentators are sitting in New York, but show much greater familiarity with the international version of their game that did their MLB colleagues with respect to Asian baseball. Loved this backhanded compliment: “That’s something I haven’t seen in a long time in Nigerian football—taking responsibility.” Indeed. Thanks for being accountable, Nigeria. Finally. After so many years. What took you so long?

What??

There is constant horn music being played in the stadium. The spit being generated must be tremendous. It started off as a soccer match, but a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass concert broke out. Is someone going to play Spanish Fly?

It’s 4,000 degrees on the field, and the teams are melting. There is no fluidity in the attacks. Where’s the passion, the creativity? Shaolin Soccer this ain’t.

Lionel Messi is apparently a superstar for Argentina. Every time he threatens to score or presses an attack, the announcers get very agitated and sound like they’re scolding their teenager: “Messi! It’s Messi! Clean your room! Messi!!”

The Argentines prevail, 1-0.

Home stretch. Coming up: thoughts on the men’s basketball gold medal game, and the closing ceremony…

A few thoughts from Day 13…

Men’s 4x100m relay, semi-final. Team USA is disqualified when Darvis Patton and anchor Tyson Gay are unable to pass the baton successfully. On the replay, NBC commentator Ato Bolden throws Doc Patton under the bus, blaming him for the botched pass. But in the very next breath, Bolden starts singing Milli Vanilli, blaming it on the rain! If Bolden could sprint forward as fast as he just backtracked, then he would have won the 100m gold in Sydney, no question…

Women’s 4x100m relay, semifinals. Torri Edwards and Lauryn Williams screw up the pass, too, dropping the baton between them—the USA women are also disqualified. To quote my friend Nick, “Yikes!!!” Who’s Bolden going to throw under the bus this time? (And can he get a medal for that? Is that an Olympic sport now?) Hmm, apparently nobody. Sad.

Baseball semi-finals: Japan v. South Korea. National pride is on the line in this international grudge match. Who will fail against their arch-rival and bring disgrace and shame upon their nation for generations to come? Each team’s psyche is more fragile than a Ming vase.

It’s the 7th inning, and Japan is up 2-1. The Japanese pitcher is just grinding out every pitch, not wanting to give up a run. Every pitch lasts as long as a Korean soap opera, and the stakes are just a high, if not higher: life, death, love, national honor. The pressure is on and anything could happen. The pitcher could start spontaneously bleeding from an orifice…die of a brain aneurysm…fall in love with his sister—or brother. Who knows?

The CNBC announcers, who are sitting in some New York studio 7,000 miles away, are idiots—clearly clueless about Asian baseball. They’re befuddled by, and complain about, everything: the pace of Japanese pitching, Korean substitution patterns, the technique the players use to scratch themselves, etc. C’mon, what’s wrong with pitchers having more hitches in their deliveries than haikus have syllables? Or batting your DH ninth? Or calling for a “sacrifice” fly on nearly every at bat, even when there’s no man on base? (The Japanese love to sacrifice…)

Oh, humiliation! For the Japanese AND the CNBC announcers. The announcers questioned the Korean manager for substituting a pinch runner for his DH in the 7th inning (yes, it’s still the 7th inning—the last time the Japanese occupied any piece of Chinese real estate for this long, FDR was president and Korea was still one country). But the move pays off when the pinch-runner scores from second, barely beating the throw home. You think that kalbi-packing Korean DH was going to beat that throw home? No way. That tub of Crisco was drinking and smoking at second, and would have died trying to round third. The Korean manager knows what he’s doing, and it’s now tied 2-2. Shame on you, CNBC announcers, shame.

It’s now the 8th inning, and Japan has subbed in another pitcher—apparently, they’ve been subbing in one closer per inning since the fifth to suppress (oppress?) the Korean bats. It didn’t work in the 7th, and I’m not sure it’s going to work here in the 8th. Iwase, the new pitcher, is 0-2 for the tournament and has an ERA of 10.38—to quote Carl Lewis, “Uh-oh!” And just like that first baseman Lee Seungyuop cranks a 2-run homer and South Korea goes up on Japan 4-2! Team Japan, comprised of Japanese all-stars, is shocked.

Here’s another shocker: the Japanese left-fielder Sato drops a Korean warning-track shot for his second error of the day! The Koreans score an unearned run and go up 5-2. “The wheels have officially come off,” notes the CNBC announcer. If only the Japanese were as reliable as their cars…

South Korea pours it on. The Korean batter hits a deep flyball that gets over the center-fielder’s head and another Korean run scores. It’s 6-2, and the Koreans are looking to go undefeated for the tournament. And…they do. Korea beats Japan in baseball! The next competition…war?

Imagine how dangerous Korean baseball could be if the two Koreas were unified—I mean not just to the world, but to each other, too. Wow. Bigger pool of talent, bigger pool of simmering trouble and antagonism…

The winner of the men’s BMX gold: Latvia. LATVIA???

Cuban taekwondo competitor Angel Valodia Matos kicked a referee in the face after he was disqualified from his match for taking too long in an injury time-out. “W.T.F.” doesn’t just stand for World Taekwondo Federation you know…

Hmm, platform diving, beach volleyball and BMX racing on tap tonight. Either this post is going to be real short or you’re going to get lots of comments about Supernanny and CSI: New York. (Gary Sinise rocks.)

What the heck is this Gymnastics Gala about? Apparently it’s where all the medalists get to come back and perform their routines (minus the hard parts) to Tesh-Lite techno music, but without any pressure, points, or prizes. So, like, practice?

Speaking of John Tesh, I miss him as a gymnastics broadcaster. But at least his presence is still felt in these Olympics through Roundball Rock.

America has been divided into two camps: Shawn Johnson Sycophants and Nastia Liukin Lunatics. I think you know where I stand. If you’re a fan of the squat girl from Middle Earth/America, then you’re into superlatives (“[X] has been the best [X] EVER!”), poetry, peace signs, and puppy dogs. You prefer SUVs, snub-nosed pistols, and the Apollo space program. You’re all about the ground-and-pound. If you’re a fan of the lithe Russian-Texan all-arounder, then you’re into elegance, artistry, and cats. Lee Harvey Oswald is your favorite assassin. You think the Mercury space program had the right stuff. Cross-bows and throwing stars are your weapons of choice—you are a ninja. Choose your side.

Here’s a great quote from Shawn Johnson:

GPmag.com: Besides a gold medal, what’s on your wish list for the future?

Shawn Johnson: Outside of gymnastics I am trying really hard to maintain great grades and hopefully, in the future, be accepted into an Ivy League college. I want to study medicine to become a doctor. I’ve toured some schools already, but ever since I was little, Stanford has always been on the top of my list. Other than that, I don’t know what the future has in store for me, but I can’t wait to find out.

Stanford—excellent choice. It’s the best school EVER!

Apparently, Nastia Liukin has been accepted to Southern Methodist University, but has deferred enrollment. Funny, she doesn’t look Methodist…

If NBC track commentator Ato Bolden were in charge of the world, we’d all be that much more productive: KEEP…THE HAMMER…DOWN!!

Men’s 110m hurdles quarterfinals…

With Liu Xiang out, the hopes of a nation fall on YOU, Shi Dongpeng. No pressure, though. Just don’t screw up. Remember, this is China, a country that set up three protest zones for the Olympics, as well as an application process…and not one applicant has been approved yet. Not only that, internal security has gone after, arrested, and detained applicants. Awesome—totally diabolical, but awesome. Commie chuckleheads…

And they’re off and…Shi (he?) qualifies for the semis!

Your relatives and descendants thank you. (“See? The gun wasn’t loaded! C’mon! We’re fascists! We’re not barbarians…”)

Is that world record holder Dayron Robles of Cuba or Steve Urkel? Robles is wearing glasses as he hurdles, which is the ultimate intimidation tactic/power move. No contacts. Not even lasik. Either that’s huge confidence or the reality of socialized medicine. (And how happy do you think the Castro Brothers are that these Olympics are in another “Communist” country? The first time Cuba’s medal count will outnumber defections since Moscow.)

Men’s 3m springboard final…

Whoa, I just saw a competitor hug and kiss a woman in celebration of a silver-winning dive. I think it might have been his girlfriend. Surprising because (1) he’s a diver and (2) he’s Canadian. You do the math. I did, and it came out wrong. Whoops. (Turns out he’s French-Canadian, which explains a lot.)

So I’ve been watching the qualifying races in track & field and every single interviewee has the same cliched answer to the question about their strategy: “I’ve just got to run my own race.” What does that even mean? You just ran in the 200m quarterfinals. Are you going to run the marathon next?

Women’s 100m hurdles final…

Surprise gold-medalist Dawn Harper’s reaction is priceless: “What?? What?? What?? What??”

Yeah, we’re pretty surprised, too, Dawn—surprised at the way that Aussie chick is flipping out over silver. She’s so excited, I think she might punch herself. Congrats to Sally McClellan.

Incidentally, Harper’s reaction was exactly the same as the middle-aged Asian guy sitting in the stands behind Lolo Jones’ mother and sister when NBC replayed their reaction to Jones’ stumble during the race: “Huh? Wha? What’s going on? Did something happen?” The fact that he was sitting in front of the Mexican flag made the scene all the more absurd: a horrified white woman, her equally-shocked mixed-race daughter, a totally befuddled Asian dude, and the Mexican flag. The Olympics on NBC!

Apparently, whatever Lolo wants, Lolo doesn’t always get…sad. But classy move to give a post-race interview, and then interrupt it to hug and congratulate McClellan. Seriously hope her life doesn’t fall apart again.

Women’s balance beam final…

The competition hasn’t even started yet, but the American women look terrible. Shawn Johnson has huge bags under her eyes, and Nastia Liukin looks zombified. What have these girls been doing? Were they partying all night? Doing shots of gin? Smoking opium? Seriously, they look altered.

Shawn Johnson is about to perform and now she looks FOCUSED…and a little desperate, honestly. No smiles whatsoever.

And she finishes. That’s it—her Beijing Olympics are over.

And…she’s in the lead!

The smiles return; she waves multiple times, flashes the peace sign once, and, wow, even flips a thumbs-up. She’s breaking out all the hand signals! Middle Earth in the house, yo. Hard to believe she pulled off that routine while she was hung over…

Zombie Nastia is up next. Her performance: SOLID. Nastia could be rocking a BAC of .40 and still successfully flip her way through a walk-and-turn sobriety test. And her score…second place! Now must find human flesh…

Shawn Johnson waves and flashes ANOTHER thumbs-up. All the dwarves in the house say, “HEY!!” One more gymnast to go…

The Japanese girl falls off! The Japanese girl falls off! Somewhere Captain Kangarolyi just exploded. Shawn Johnson finally gets her gold medal! And waves to the camera! And signals number one! And smashes a beer can against her head! All the elves in the house say, “Yeah!”

Men’s high bar final…

Now competing for The Netherlands—Napoleon Dynamite. Who promptly flies off the bar. Ouch. Congrats to silver medalist Jonathan Horton.

Iowa Update: Shawn Johnson finally wins gold, Lolo Jones stumbles while in the lead and finishes second to last. Tomorrow, Doug Schwab wrestles for Hawkeye Nation.

Lates.

It’s actually Day 10 right now, but I didn’t get to finish this last night…

Iowa sure loves its sculptures. At the Iowa State Fair, apparently, there are sculptures of two native Iowans who are competing in the Beijing Olympics. One is of gymnast Shawn Johnson, who is from West Des Moines, and it is made of butter—BUTTER. The other is of 100-meter hurdler Lori “Lolo” Jones, originally of Des Moines, and it is made of ice—ICE. There is actually a third Iowan competing at the Beijing Olympics: wrestler Doug Schwab. No word on what his sculpture, if any, is made of—hopefully not tears and broken dreams. Cotton candy?

By the way, I’m a fan of Lolo Jones—sort of. There are two reasons why I like her and one major reason why I’m ambivalent. The first reason I like her is that she’s rather attractive—and attractive people are inherently superior to non-attractive people. This is a fact…possibly a biblical truth. (Obviously, I know this from firsthand experience—it’s a curse, really.)

Second reason I like her: she likes Jesus—and as a general rule I like people who like Jesus. In July, I was flipping channels, came across a broadcast of the U.S. track & field trials from Oregon, and saw Lolo Jones win the final of her race to qualify for the Olympics. After crossing the finish line, she started freaking out because she had succeeded after failing to qualify in 2004. That failure had put her into a psychological and financial tailspin, from which she had struggled to right herself. During her 2008 post-race interview, the first words out of her mouth were, “Thank you, Jesus!”

And there you go.

But there’s one reason I can’t quite fully support Lolo, and that is her unreasonable refusal to race a horse—A HORSE. Apparently, there was some rumor that she was going to do that after the Olympics, but she shot it down: “Lolo’s not racing any horse. I’ve got enough problems with humans.”

What the?? If you’re not going to race a horse after the Olympics, then what’s the point?

Frankly, those are my three main criteria for Olympic greatness: (1) attractiveness; (2) likes Jesus; and (3) willingness to race horses and other equids (including donkeys, mules, burros, and zebras). Athletic prowess is, like, number eight on that list. Maybe.

Based on that criteria, here are my top three Olympians of all-time: (1) Sonjia Henie ; (2) Eric Liddell; (3) Jessie Owens.

You could be on that list, too, Lolo—think about it.

Wow, Jamaicans run fast. The women sweep the 100m sprint…

Men’s Basketball: China v. Greece…

Sofoklis “Baby Shaq” Schortsanitis is a half-African (Cameroonian), half-Greek center for the Greek team. Dude is jumbo-sized. About 6’10″, probably tips the scale at four bills. The commentator for the live online feed noted that Schortsanitis had put on a lot of weight recently and didn’t have his usual explosiveness for rebounds or putbacks. Time to push away from the souvlakis, Sofo. You wouldn’t want Vasileios “Toddler Kobe” Spanoulis to start calling you fat, lazy, and out-of-shape now, would you? Because then you’re going to force your teammates and management to take sides, which will lead to one of you being traded for two gyros and a block of feta cheese. Then some day you’ll be freestyle rappin’ in some Athenian nightclub about how Spanoulis couldn’t win a medal without you and asking how your [bleep] tastes. And frankly, no one wants that.

Ugh, China’s guards are a disgrace. They are literally running into each other on both offense and defense. Terrible.

Just like this post: The Chen Jianghua of Posts. Sorry.

Extra! Extra! This just in: 110-meter Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang has dropped out of the Beijing Olympics! Holy crap! Send in the PLA because BJ could go up in flames at any time! Yikes.

Dara Torres wears some huge, old-school swimming goggles. I think they’re bifocals.

Commentator Rowdy Gaines just equated the men’s 1500m freestyle race to the Super Bowl for Australians. You mean an interminably long and bloated sporting event? True. 30 lengths of the pool in 15 minutes. During the race, NBC took two commercial breaks and replayed all of Michael Phelps’ Olympic races back-to-back…including the ones from Athens. What does this say about Australians, that the 1500m is like their “Super Bowl”? Nothing good, frankly. Maybe they play drinking games? Take a sip for every turn? Dunno.

On the other end of the spectrum, sprinter Usain Bolt breaks the world record in winning the men’s 100m. He then goes to the stands to celebrate with his mother, a contingent of jubilant Jamaicans, and two random Chinese guys who were caught in the middle of it all. One of the Chinese was wearing a shirt that said “I Love China.” The other Chinese was wearing a shirt that said “I Love Weed.”

Japan and South Korea are duking it out right now in the women’s ping-pong team bronze-medal match. Tension hangs in the air like the stench of kimchi. You could cut it with a samurai sword. Who will prevail and bring honor to their country? Who will fail and bring shame to their family and their descendants for generations to come?

I won’t know because I’m going to bed. Good night.

On Men’s Basketball: USA v. Spain…

During pre-game warmups, Team USA is shooting very, very poorly. You could build another Great Wall of China with all the bricks they’re putting up. [Rimshot!] This is not a good sign.

Marc Gasol isn’t the only Spaniard with his first name on his gear. Some guy named Ricky Rubio is rocking “Ricky” on the back of his warmups. I guess it is sort of a Brazilian/Indonesian thing. Actually, come to think of it, Team USA sports a lot of first names on their unis, too: Howard, Paul, James, Anthony, Wade. Interesting.

Speaking of Dwyane Wade, he is unquestionably the Shawn Johnson of Team USA. They are uncannily similar: squatty, muscular, high-flying, and black.

Before the game, LeBron goes through his pre-game ritual of throwing crap into the air—Beijing’s pollution index just rose by ten points. What is that stuff, anyway? Talcum powder? Opium? Solid smog?

Commentator Mike Breen says that Team USA is the worst 3-point shooting team in the basketball tournament. The tournament? How about the entire Beijing Olympics? The American women’s gymnastics team could sink more threes! (Fact: Chellsie Memmel has no conscience—she’s a freaking dictator from behind the arc. They call her Chellsie Mao-mel.) The NBC broadcasting team of Al Trautwig, Tim Daggett, and Elfi Schlegel could probably shoot threes better…and Elfi’s CANADIAN!

Interesting. Breen says that Jason Kidd hasn’t taken a shot yet in these Olympics. That ties him with Michael Phelps, Liu Xiang, and Bela Karolyi. There are Greco-Roman wrestlers who have jacked up more balls than Kidd. Definitely men’s cyclists…

Ironic. Chris Bosh plays for the Toronto Raptors, and he really does look like a raptor. That or an ostrich with dreadlocks.

Huh, Spain subs in one of the Jonas Brothers. Oh, wait, that’s Ricky Rubio.

The Spanish players are pretty shaggy. They’re all sporting at least a five o’clock shadow—indeed, some are sporting ten o’clock shadows. Except Rubio. He’s wearing ten o’clock eyebrows. It may be time to tweeze, Rick.

We learn that Kobe Bryant’s nickname in China is the “Little Flying Warrior.” Speaking of Kobe, does anyone remember that time five years ago when he was arrested for sexual assault? That was…weird.

Someone get Governor Schwarzenegger on the phone right now because I think the T-1000 is coaching Spain. Has anyone ever seen head coach Aíto García Reneses and Robert Patrick in the same room at the same time? Didn’t think so.

Kidd takes (and makes) his first shot of the tournament! A layup on a fast-break! Kidd breaks his tie with Michael Phelps, and sends him a message: “Stroke that butterfly, Phelps.” For the Olympics, Kidd now has as many baskets as Tajikistan has medals.

It’s halfway through the fourth quarter and Team USA is leading by 30. The game is so over that the commentators are rehashing old anecdotes about the team selection process. Breen is recounting how one of the players arrived for an interview with USA Basketball’s managing director Jerry Colangelo in sweats, asked to use the restroom, then changed into a suit and tie for the interview. This story is often cited as an example of how focused and professional the NBA players are in their approach to the Olympics.

Really? Wouldn’t it have been better to show up already wearing the suit and tie? I think that’s how it usually works in the professional world, right? I’m guessing suicide bombers probably arrive for their interviews already strapped with explosives, you know what I mean?

(I have no idea what that means.)

In the post-game interview, Craig Sager asks Chris Paul what he’s going to do on this day off. His response: “I might go and see the Great Wall—we’re in China, you know.” Smooth.

Sorry for the low quality of this post. If it was a team in Group B of the Olympic basketball tournament, it would be Angola. Hey, these can’t all be winners…