Clutch!

BEIJING (Olympics) - We are down to the last few miles of this media b-ball marathon called the olympic tournament full of trips in refrigerated buses or overpacked,suffocating subway wagons, ultra- short nights and mega-long days and despite the flu and some of our readers criticisms,I think I'm going to survive!

The friendly volunteers and citizens of Bejing make up for any hardships in this gigantic megalopolis that brings on memories of Las Vegas architectural enormities spread out over endless miles of long straight roads and highways flowing to infinity in order to house a population of 18 million hardworking chinese people!

In the first round there were less memorable games than expected but the Greece-Argentina quarterfinal made up for it!I was lucky to predict the outcome of the eight quarters for men and women but if Spanoulis,so often clutch in the past,had hit his last three I would have missed a sweep.

In the best game of the tournament along with China-Germany,the incredibly hot shooting of Delfino and the mastery of Manu in the last possessions was the tiny edge that put an undermanned Argentina over the hump despite Nocioni's knee injury and Oberto's zero points.

Greece seemed content to keep the game close dominating inside in order to pull it out in the end like they usually do,but I feel they should have tried to wear Argentina down over the course of the game by pressing , running and rotating their players more.

This was a fabulous duel where both teams played great team ball at both ends from start to finish and Delfino lived the defining moment of his career in one of its biggest games.

A clutch performance like the one Jasikevicius put on vs China.

If the stat people gave more assists on jump shots, Saras would have easily gone for a deserved double-double and in any case he was the leader in scoring,passing and uptempo intensity that China couldn't shackle or match!

Kazlauskas has to teach his players how to make a simple lob pass into Yao when the opponent is fronting him with a guy 20 centimeters shorter!

He should have scored 40 and I still can't figure out Yi who is scared to shoot or post up despite an enormous height advantage.

Someone needs to light a fire under him in the image of the chinese women's team (this is my favorite squad here) which is more aggressive and daring!

That will be Lawrence Franks' job this season.

Spain showed plenty of defensive fire against Croatia who missed their little shooter,Popovic, and seemed troubled by internal strife(Barac etc.).

A lot of observers are disappointed with Spain's lack of flamboyance on offence but this is coach Aito's choice as is his decision to favor Ricky and Rudy,his Badalona tandem which play a more european style than Calderon and especially Navarro who has, mentally, already left the rotation and the tournament!

If Spain gets a medal it will be hard to criticize the coach but the team was more exciting to watch in Japan.

And,finally in the latest team USA beatdown,Australia hung around for a half(they should have only been down 7 at the break),thanks to not backing down physically,aggressively attacking the basket,good three point shooting and the speed of Mills.

In the second half, Bogut's absence, fatigue and most importantly, team USA's incredibly talented player rotation squelched any lingering hope for a close game!Kobe played his best game and should surely keep shooting 3's from 7 meters where he is more comfortable!I'll conclude by saying, I never,in 44 years of attending games, heard an arena sing its national anthem the way the chinese did before the China-Lithuania quarterfinal, it was stupefying!

George EDDY