Defense Pulls Through

The problem for Team America was that they simply did not take enough three point shots, I mean only 40 out of their 85 shots came from outside the arc /sarcasm
Anyways their defense really pulled it through, and that’s a pretty damn good considering they were against one of the toughest matchup problems in modern basketball: Dirk Nowitzki (the seven footer who can shoot threes), and they held him to just 25% shooting.

Once they realized they couldn’t shoot, the Americans knew they had to make sure Dirk Nowitzki couldn’t, either.

Carmelo Anthony scored 10 of his 19 points in the third quarter, when the United States finally took control with its pressure defense, and the Americans went on to beat Germany 85-65 Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the world championships.

The U.S. overcame its worst offensive performance of the tournament with one of its best defensive outings, limiting Germany to 26 points in the second half and forcing Nowitzki to miss nine of 12 shots.

“Dirk is unstoppable, so we tried to send in as many defenders as possible,” LeBron James said. “You’ve just got to contain a guy like that and hope he misses some shots. He only had 12 attempts, so we know we did a good job.”

James added 13 points for the U.S., which broke away from a one-point halftime lead by using a flurry of steals and blocks to outscore Germany 16-2 over a nearly 6-minute span in the third period.

The Americans (7-0) remained one of the four unbeaten teams and advanced to face European champion Greece (7-0) Friday night in the semifinals. Greece beat France 73-56 earlier Wednesday. #