USA’s loss to Lithuania

It has come to this: American basketball is taking heart in improvement. How humiliating. How degrading. How pathetic. How in the world?

Team USA's 94-90 loss to Lithuania last night was not revelation, but confirmation. It reaffirmed that the erstwhile Dream Team is deeply flawed and poorly suited to international basketball; that its shooting touch is mainly thumbs; that its perimeter defense is modeled on the Maginot Line; that its lasting legacy may be to leave the world laughing, infroms San Diego Union Tribune.

Earlier Saturday, Spain clinched first place in its group. Spain beat Serbia, 76-68, on Saturday, dropping the losers to 1-3 and putting them in a must-win situation against China in its final preliminary round game on Monday, as well as have some other results go their way.

The Spanish play New Zealand in their final game, but even a loss on Monday won’t keep them from winning Group A. In other games, Puerto Rico beat Australia, 87-82; Argentina defeated New Zealand, 98-94; Italy beat China, 89-52; and Greece defeated Angola, 88-56.

The Americans gave their best all-around performance of these Olympics and led for most of the game, but their flaw of the day was free throw shooting as they missed 11-of-33 from the line to allow Lithuania to stay within striking distance.

The Americans were anything but ugly, finding ways to penetrate the zone defense, using their defense to create turnovers and generally looking as crisp for 40 minutes as they have since first coming together for training camp late last month.

Though Lithuania hit six of its first seven shots and nine of 12, its players were uncommonly sloppy with the ball and committed 10 turnovers in the first quarter -- one of which was a totally unnecessary behind-the-back pass on a three-on-one break that sailed out of bounds, reports ABC News.

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