U.S. men’s team nearly gets its fill of Turkey
One week before its opener at the Athens Games, the U.S. men’s Olympic team took a step backward — even though the Americans didn’t quite see it that way.
The American team blew most of a 14-point fourth-quarter lead against a Turkish team missing Hedo Turkoglu, one of its two NBA players, before coming away with a 79-67 victory at Istanbul, Turkey, on Sunday night. It was not an encouraging performance for the Americans, who again struggled against a team that didn’t even qualify for the Olympics — just as happened earlier on their European trip against Germany.
A 19-8 run including several of Turkey’s 11 3-pointers narrowed the home team’s deficit to 68-65 with 3 1/2 minutes left before the U.S. team turned up its defensive pressure to close out the game.
“It was a good experience for us because we’re going to have games like this (in Athens) when there is some adversity and they start making shots against us,” coach Larry Brown said. “We’re just going to have to deal with it.”
Tim Duncan led the United States with 16 points and Allen Iverson scored 13, with no one else reaching double figures.
Most alarming for the Americans was the way the team’s core of youngsters, including LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade, couldn’t keep Turkey from making a game of it down the stretch. Though Brown admitted he was tempted to leave his youngsters in, he reinserted the team’s elder statesmen, Duncan and Iverson, who steadied the team to help close out the victory.
Women’s basketball
At Salamanca, Spain, Lisa Leslie scored 12 points and Sue Bird added 11, leading the U.S. women’s Olympic team to a 68-38 victory over France at the Spanish International Tournament.
Leslie finished with a game-high nine rebounds, and Yolanda Griffith had six rebounds and nine points.
The U.S. team will play its final exhibition game before the Athens Olympics on Monday, facing host Spain in the championship of the tournament.
The U.S. opener in the Olympics is Saturday.
Track and field
At Munich, Germany, Marion Jones won twice in her first competition in more than three weeks, capturing the long jump and running the second leg for a U.S. 400-meter relay team that had the best time in the world this year.
Jones helped lead the United States to victory in a meet against Germany and France. The meet was used by U.S. coaches mostly as a chance to practice relays before the Athens Games, which begin Friday.
Jones leaped 22 feet, 4 1/2 inches on her last attempt to win the long jump.
The relay team, which also included Angela Williams, Lauryn Williams and LaTasha Colander, won Sunday in 41.37 seconds. Ian Waltz, out of Post Falls High and Washington State University, was second in the discus. He threw 204 feet to finish behind Germany’s Lars Riedel (215-9).
“At Huelva, Spain, Cuban javelin thrower Osleidys Menendez won gold at the finale of the Iberoamerican Games on Sunday.
Spain won the most gold medals (16), followed by Cuba (14) in the event for 27 Portuguese-and Spanish-speaking nations. It’s the final warmup before the Athens Olympics.
Menendez, who holds the world record of 71.54 meters set in 2001, hurled the javelin 66.99.