U.S. basketball team gets back to work

LAS VEGAS – Dwyane Wade slumped in a chair, bags of ice resting on both knees and his right wrist.

The U.S. basketball team returned to training camp Monday night after nearly a week off. And with games coming soon, it looks like this session is going to be a little more serious.

“We had a great practice, really hard,” U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Really hard.”

Before Krzyzewski put them through a long workout at UNLV, the 15 returning players were first treated to a speech at their hotel from Sen. John McCain, giving the team an emotional boost before they took the floor.

“It was amazing. It was tremendous what Sen. McCain did,” Krzyzewski said. “He talked about his service to our country, which I don’t think we’ll be able to replicate. He’s supporting us, and he knew every guy’s name. And our guys really appreciated that.”

While Krzyzewski used the first session of camp to get to know his roster of NBA players, the Duke coach planned to focus more on the basketball aspects this time.

And before he even got to the arena, he knew his players were ready to jump back into things.

“I saw it as soon as I checked into the hotel today,” Krzyzewski said. “I ran into a few of them, and there’s a smile on their face. I said, ‘You ready to go’? They said, ‘Coach, we’re excited.’ And they did that same thing when they came on the court today. They worked hard.”

The start of the world championships are only 20 days away, and their first exhibition game comes Thursday night against Puerto Rico – the same team that embarrassed them in their opening game at the 2004 Olympics. The teams will scrimmage against each other today.