LeBron James on U.S. basketball
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For the record: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the final score as 105-57.
Mark Heisler’s game story describes the U.S. men’s basketball team’s 106-57 pounding of Germany this way: ‘Not that this was one-sided, but this looked like one of those fantasy camps where businessmen pay to play against NBA stars.’
Here are some post-game quotes, courtesy of USA Basketball:
LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers)
On getting up for the games:
‘We’re trying to play with a chip on our shoulder. We go out every night and try to get better. Going against Greece and going against Spain were easy to get up for. We could have easily had one of those games where we came in and made excuses, but we didn’t take a step backwards today and that was good. It was really good.’
On the next opponent, Australia:
‘They play a real physical team and we’re looking forward to it. We’re going to have to get a lot of rest and take care of our bodies because it’s going to be one of those physical games. One thing we’re going to do is to try to get up and down and try to wear them down a lot.’
On challenging each other to work harder on defense:
‘I don’t know when it happened. I can’t tell you when it [first] happened, but I’ve said it to almost everybody. I went to Dwight before and told him he needed to be a little tougher, a little bit more vocal on the defensive end. I went to Kobe and told him he didn’t need to gamble as much. They come to me too and tell me I need to be more vocal. That’s when I took that responsibility, when they were saying we hear your voice all the time but can you lead the charge on the defensive end and that was a good thing for me.’
-- Greg Johnson
Top, Germany’s forward Dirk Nowitzki, left, holds the ball away from U.S. guard Tayshaun Prince during the game on Monday. The U.S. won, 106-57. Credit: Jerry Lai / US Presswire; LeBron James. Credit: USOC