LeBron James and Kevin Durant turned it up in the second half to put away Argentina and advance to the gold medal game against Spain.

United States basketball blew out Argentina 109-83 in the Olympic semifinals to advance to the gold medal game against Spain on Sunday.

U.S. led 24-19 after the first quarter thanks to an early outburst from Kobe Bryant.  Bryant had 11 points early in the first quarter by hitting 3-for-5 from 3-point range.  It looked as if the U.S. would run away with it early, but Argentina was able to slow the game down and get back in it with a late surge from Luis Scola and Manu Ginobili.

Argentina fell down by double digits several times in the second quarter, but Ginobili hit a 3 at the buzzer to make it a 7 point game at halftime.  LeBron James got his game going and had 11 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and a block at the half while Bryant put up 13 points.  Kevin Love contributed 7 points off the bench.  For Argentina it was Carlos Delfino getting hot with 13 while Scola had 10 at the half.  U.S. was able to hold Ginobili to 8 first half points on just 3-for-7 from the field. U.S. struggled from the 3-point line outside of Bryant only hitting on 5-for-17 from deep in the first two quarters.

Ginobili hit another 3 on the first play of the second half to make it a 4 point game.  The U.S. was struggling against the zone and Ginobili was getting his offense together.  That’s when Kevin Durant hit a pair of  wide open 3′s that pushed the lead back to double figures.  Durant had 12 points in the third quarter alone on 4 3-pointers.  U.S. had an 74-57 lead after 3 quarters.

The game was over after three quarters and the subs for the U.S. continued to blow Argentina out in the fourth.  Carmelo Anthony caught fire with 3 straight 3-pointers and finished strong with 18 points for the game.  All it took for the U.S. was one player to get hot each quarter and it happened.  LeBron had 18 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists on the game while Kobe added 13 and Durant led the team in scoring with 19.  Love made a major impact off the bench with 9 points and 9 rebounds.    Russell Westbrook hobbled to the lockerroom after an apparent leg injury, hopefully he is able to go in the final game of London 2012.

U.S. will take on the Gasol brothers Spain team in the gold medal game.  Spain has dropped two games and was blown out in an exhibition by the U.S.  Spain overcame Russia after being down 11 at the half.  Spain has the most dominant front line of size in the Olympics, but the U.S. shouldn’t have much trouble winning.

It’s great to see Amare Stoudemire working on his footwork with Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon.  That spin move looks scary.  Knicks fans everywhere are hopeful that STAT can return to form in ’12-’13.

Brazil still took the loss to Argentina, but look how Leandro Barbosa crosses Andres Nocioni and sends him tumbling.  Then he adds injury to insult and hits the 3.

LeBron James powered the United States past Australia in the first game of single elimination play in London. James finished with 11 points, 14 rebounds, and 12 assists.

United States basketball cruised to a win 119-86 win over Australia to advance to the Olympic semifinals in London behind a triple double performance from LeBron James.  It was the first triple double in Olympic history.

The U.S. took a 56-42 lead into the half after a physical first two quarters of play.  James was doing it all as usual and was especially effective on the glass as he already had 10 at the half.  Tyson Chandler went to the bench early with two fouls and James made up for the missing size in the paint by hitting the boards.  James also had six assists and seven points to go along with his boards in the first half and was the main force for team USA.

Patty Mills gave the U.S. the most trouble with 12 points at the break, but the U.S. was able to hold Australia to 38 percent shooting.  The U.S. only shot 42 percent in the first half, but still had the big lead.  Deron Williams had 14 points off the bench to lead all scorers.  Kobe Bryant continued to struggle in the first half as he went 0-for-3 with no points.

Australia cut the lead down to five points as they went on a run to start the third quarter.  Joe Ingles was giving the U.S. problems with his long range shooting as he nailed two to start the second half.

Bryant started to warm up in the third as he got aggressive getting to the free throw line and then hitting two straight 3′s to stretch the U.S. lead back out to 12 points.

LeBron’s amazing passing ability was on display all game long.  He just looks right over the top of the defense and makes the right play that leads to an easy bucket for his teammates almost every time.  There has never been such an unselfish superstar who is capable of scoring, but chooses to distribute in the history of the game of basketball.  On a dream team like the star stacked roster of the U.S., it’s a beautiful thing to have the main guy be someone who is always looking for his teammates.

Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony got their offense going at the end of the third quarter to push the lead out to 15 points.  Durant was hitting the long ball as usual going 4-for-8.  Durant had 14 after the third quarter while Anthony poured in 13.  Australia and the U.S. played the third quarter even at 28 points per piece and the U.S. held the same 14 point lead that they had at the half going into the fourth quarter.

Williams led the U.S. in scoring with 18 off the bench while Anthony added 15 points.  LeBron finished with a huge triple double with 11 points, 14 rebounds, and 12 assists.  Bryant got hot in the fourth from behind the 3 point line hitting five straight and finishing with 20 points. Durant finished with 14 points while Kevin Love added 10. Anthony finished with 17 points. The physical nature and the size of the U.S. wore down the Australians all game long, even though they gave their best effort, it wasn’t enough to knock out the mighty USA.

The Dwightmare continues as Howard let down his young fans in Orlando by staying in L.A. to rehab his back instead of showing up for his own basketball camp.

The Dwight Howard saga has crossed a line into a whole different place after he canceled an appearance at his own basketball camp in Orlando opting to stay in L.A. to get “back treatment”.

This camp was previously pushed back more than a month already and the entry fee was $199.  Howard will be replaced by rookie Andrew Nicholson at the camp.  Dwight what would your ten-year-old self say? He should be ashamed of himself and these kids aren’t going to know who Nicholson is and will be deeply disappointed.

Making things worse is the fact that he is obviously healthy enough to go and get booed at Dodgers games.  So not only has Dwight Howard let down his teammates and the Magic organization, but now his behavior has affected the kids.  His actions in the last year are some of the worst in the history of sports with all the public flip flopping on his decisions.

The Magic drafted Howard No. 1 overall when he was 18-years-old and gave him the opportunity to live out his dream.  During his senior year of high school, he was on ESPN more than one time talking about his belief in God and bringing religion into an NBA lockerroom.  You haven’t heard anything about his faith since then.  Instead he is turning into the ultimate villain of the league, a bad guy.

LeBron James tried to play the villain role during the 09-10 season, but figured out that being angry and playing angry wasn’t him.  So I guess somebody has to be the villain and Howard is an absolute natural for the position.  I can only hope that the Magic figure out a way to make him suffer like he’s doing to them.  They need to trade him somewhere that he doesn’t want to go at all for draft picks.  Find a team that is willing to trade draft picks and a little talent with no guarantee that the center will sign a deal with them.

The Houston Rockets are a place that would trade a lot of young talent and picks to the Magic for Howard.  Dwight doesn’t want to be in Houston, so maybe that’s a place that they should consider dealing him and accept Jeremy Lamb and Terrence Jones and some picks.  The Lakers are a rumored destination, but I have no clue why they would get replace Andrew Bynum with Howard.  Bynum is immature in his own right and isn’t quite the player that Howard is.  Even with his immaturity, Bynum also isn’t half of the headache that Howard is and the gap in talent isn’t that big.  Bynum is still the second best center in the league.  Howard has said he wants to go to New Jersey, excuse me.. Brooklyn, but they resigned Brook Lopez for $60 mil and can’t trade him to Orlando until January.  I could see Howard playing with Orlando and getting traded to Brooklyn at the trade dealine, but I wouldn’t recommend that for the Magic.

Carmelo Anthony takes an unfortunate cheap shot to the nuts from Facundo Campazzo of Argentina in the United States 126-97 win.

Kevin Durant went for 28 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals in the United States blowout victory over Argentina after catching fire in the third quarter.

United States Basketball stayed undefeated in Olympic play after blowing out Argentina in the third quarter after only leading by a point at the half.  The final score was 126-97.

U.S. limped out of the first quarter with a two point lead after making 7 shots from 3-point range.  Kevin Durant was hot from deep range going 3-for-3 in the first period, but the team wasn’t playing good defense.  Argentina scored 32 points on 65 percent from the field and 3-for-4 from 3-point range.  Manu Ginobili got to the bucket and scored whenever he wanted with 11 points on 3-for-4 and 5-for-5 from the free throw line in the first quarter.

Andre Iguodala came in and provided a defensive spark to start the second quarter creating points off of turnovers and pushing the tempo.  He was getting to the bucket with his slashing ability and putting on the finish at the rim. Then he dunked the ball wide open and it bounced off his head back through the basket and the dunk didn’t count.  It was that type of first half for the Red, White, and Blue as they took a 1-point lead into halftime.  Argentina was on fire shooting 56 percent from the field in the first half, which ended in Manu going to the line after a horrendous flop.  Ginobili led all scorers with 16 points in the first half on 4-for-5 from the field and 7-for-7 from the free throw stripe.

Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook were ice cold off the bench going a combined 0-for-8 in the first half.  Kobe Bryant was 3-for-9 while LeBron James wasn’t much of a factor.  Kevin Durant was 3-for-5 and was hot early, but cooled in the second quarter.  Chris Paul was really the only player who had the hot hand as he finished the first half with 14 points on 4-for-5 from 3-point range.  U.S. had little rhythm to their game in the first half on either end of the floor so I could see the comeback was on it’s way because that kind of play isn’t going to stay the same after a halftime speech from Coach K.  Chris Paul also provided a halftime speech trying to push his teammates to defend.

LeBron came out very aggressive to start the third quarter, scoring 7 points in the first two minutes while pushing the U.S. out to a 9-point lead early in the third.  He was pushing the ball in transition and playing to takeover the game and a sub-par first half.  By the time James went to the bench with four fouls the U.S. was up 85-69.  Right after LeBron sits down, Argentina goes on a run to cut it to 11.  That’s when Kevin Durant caught fire.

Durant had 17 points in the third quarter alone and was 8-for-9 from 3-point range on the game after three quarter.  He was putting on a shooting display and really hustling and working hard on the defensive end.  He looked locked in an hungry out there and his shot was automatic. Durant had 28 points after the third period.  Carmelo Anthony took a cheap shot knee to the groin from an Argentina player at the end of the third quarter when the U.S. was blowing them out by 26 points.  Both benches cleared, but nothing escalated.  The U.S. one point lead at the half turned into a 26 point lead by the end of the third quarter, a quarter that the U.S. won 42-17.

The fourth quarter was all blow out time.  Westbrook got the retaliation to the Melo cheap shot by dunking hard in the face of an Argentina player and staring him down.  U.S. cruised to an easy victory after dominating the second half.  The U.S. is 5-0 in Olympic play so far.  Durant finished with 28, James had 18, and Paul had 17 to lead the U.S.

Carmelo Anthony’s Olympic success will go a long ways in preparing him to be the leader that the Knicks need him to be to compete on a championship level.

Carmelo Anthony’s summer has been sizzling as he has been the most potent scorer on a team full of stars in three games in the London Olympics so far.  Yesterday against Nigeria, Melo put on a rare scoring display notching a game-high record of 37 points in just 14 minutes going 13-for-16 from the field and 10-for-12 from 3-point land.  The success that Anthony is having this summer will translate into success in the winter for the New York Knicks.

Knicks fans are waiting for Anthony to take the next step in his game and turn them into a championship contender.  Any criticism around Anthony stems from the fact that he’s only been past the first round one time despite the fact that he’s never missed the playoffs in nine years.  That one time is when he took an average Denver Nuggets team to the Western Conference Finals where they were beaten swiftly by Kobe and the Lakers in the year 2008.  ’08 just happened to be the season after Anthony and the redeem team took the gold in Beijing. He showed great leadership on Team USA that summer and really dispelled a lot of negative perception about himself and carried that over to the NBA season.

I thought once he got to that stage it would be nothing less for years and years, but he was eliminated early by the Jazz in 09-10 and traded to the Knicks the season after.  He played great in his first season as a Knick, but when it came down to playoff time Chauncey Billups and Amare Stoudemire were both sidelined with injury and the Knicks were swept.  This last season Carmelo was out of shape, not fat unplayable out of shape, but just not as well conditioned as he needed to be.  He shot a near career low %43 from the field and struggled with his jumper like I’ve never seen before. However, he got it all back on track in April as he led the league in scoring and the Knicks to must-needed wins to clinch a playoff spot.

Anthony is clearly in much better shape now.  Rumors were that he’d lost 15-20 pounds and it really shows in the way he’s able to move up and down the court.  Conditioning was really the biggest weakness in his game last season and it won’t be an issue in ’12-’13 as he will still be in great shape from the Olympics.  His improved conditioning is huge for the Knicks success as he is looked on to play heavy minutes.

His dominant scoring displays in London are going to bring back the confidence to Anthony’s game to where he starts to believe I am as good as LeBron, Durant, and anyone else.  When Anthony has confidence on his side, his jumper falls, and he becomes a very scary player to guard.  NBA teams are going to throw their best defender or two best defenders at Carmelo on a nightly basis and the Olympic play is a great tool for making the right pass because you are always going to pass to another star.  That’s the mindset that Carmelo needs to bring to the Knicks because guys will be open.

I believe that Melo knows he had a disappointing season even though he averaged 22 points per game.  I would be shocked if that numbers isn’t at least 25 ppg next season and his shooting percentage goes way up.  Tyson Chandler is also a Knick and it’s great for him to be able to see what Anthony can do.  It’s going to be a great thing for them to experience winning together on a high level so that it becomes second nature when they go back to the Knicks.  Also Melo is practicing being a leader, if he is able to lead a group of all-stars and Hall of Famers then certainly leading the New York Knicks should be second nature.

Carmelo has proven he is a once in a generation type of scorer, but in today’s game that’s not enough to bring home titles.  The things that Coach K is preaching and the respect that has to be shown when playing for Team USA are going to help further Anthony’s career so that he’s not perennially getting eliminated from the first round.  I feel something special on the horizon and it feels like this upcoming season is going to be Melo’s year.  Like he said, “My time to win a championship is coming,”.

NBA 2k13 tracklist brought to you by Jay-Z

When the news broke that Jay-Z would be executive producing the video game NBA 2k13 the first thing that came to mind was how hot the soundtrack would be.

It’s heavy with old bangers from Jay and Kanye.  You got Nas on there, a Meek Mill instrumental, and rockers U2 and Coldplay.

Then there’s songs that stay on other video games and are way played out like Too Short Blow the Whistle and Puff Daddy Victory.

Someone told me earlier that it looks more like a mixtape than a soundtrack.  Jay-Z should have used the tracklist for 2k to break a new artist or drop some new music rather than make everybody listen to all of these recycled songs over and over again.

Mercy by Kanye with Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz is a good look along with Jay-Z’s pump it up freestyle.  The HAM instrumental is perfect for getting the gamer into kill mode.

Regardless of that, the soundtrack bring far more heat than any of version of the video game.  Or any other video game in general so props to Jay-Z for giving me a little something to listen to while I’m dominating his Brooklyn Nets with the Knicks for hours on end.

Carmelo Anthony was on fire with the jumper providing the scoring during the United States 110-63 route over Tunisia.

United States dismantled heavy underdog Tunisia 110-63  to improve to 2-0 in Olympic play.

U.S. went into the halftime break up by 13.  Far from the beating that most expected early as Tunisia got from deep and hit 7-for-13 while the U.S. hit just 2-for-12 from downtown in the first half.  The U.S. players would be better served to leave the 3-ball alone a little more and get to the basket instead because they are unstoppable when they take that approach.

Tunisia was ranked dead last in FIBA and the United States was a 54 point favorite to win the game.  They didn’t cover that spread, but I think it’s interesting because Tunisia is probably the average level of competition that the ’92 Dream Team played against.  Tunisia struggled to score in their first game against Nigeria with 15 points at the half so there was no reason to expect anything less than a beating today against the U.S.

Coach K wasn’t happy with the starters in the first half and changed up the lineup to start the third.  He went with the second unit featuring scorers Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony because they came with more energy in the first half.  When the starting unit was struggling the second unit came in and went on a 14-0 run in the first half which led to the decision to go with them in the third.  It paid off as the U.S. started to run away in the third quarter pushing the lead out to 20 and didn’t look back.

Anthony provided the scoring and like always when his jumper is on then he’s unstoppable.  He got hot in the third quarter and does it inside and out better than anybody else in the world.  Westbrook continued to get to the rim and use his athleticism to get buckets.  In the open court, there’s nobody better than Westbrook especially when the strategy of the U.S. is to run.

The U.S. turned up the tempo and started playing defense after the first quarter which led to the severe beating of Tunisia.  They couldn’t keep up at all and the athletic advantage was showing more and more as the game went on.  There’s no reason to worry about the slow start because it clearly was unacceptable to Coach K and he fixed it fast.

Anthony had 16 points on 6-for-6 shooting while Durant went for 13 and Westbrook 11.  Andre Iguodala provided nasty dunk after nasty dunk and he’s quite a force when he eliminated the jumper from his game entirely.  James Harden got into the action with some 3′s while Anthony Davis showed the kind of talent he has with several vicious dunks. Davis and Harden were both in double figures.  By the end of the game it was just a dunk contest between the U.S. players.