Olympic Men’s Basketball, Day 1: Spain, Argentina, Russia Win Big

Considering it was Shved’s first time playing in the Olympics, Sunday’s performance was quite impressive -- and the play of the two new Timberwolves wasn’t lost on their coach, either.

While Minnesota fans are happy and Blatt’s quote says quite a bit, the best quip following Russia’s victory on Sunday came from Kirilenko.

The first day of the men’s Olympic basketball tournament went more or less as scripted. Any informed observer would likely have predicted all six winners on the first day of pool play, so any surprises were limited to how relatively good or bad the 12 teams appeared in their first Olympic action. Still, with actual Olympic basketball comes a chance to analyze the contenders in action. So what did we learn?

So did we learn anything on Day 1? The four qualifiers from Group A appear to be pretty well pre-determined, and that didn’t change. The United States, Argentina, France and Lithuania will likely advance, despite 20-point losses for the European teams, but Tuesday’s meeting with Lithuania will be Nigeria’s chance to prove that they can threaten for a top four finish in the group.

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The NBA experience and hot shooting of the Argentinian national team was too much to overcome for Lithuania in their late Sunday opener of the 2012 London Olympics, as the Argentines won 102-79. Olympic staple Luis Scola was dominant inside for Argentina, scoring 32 points for the game high.

Carlos Delfino led a barrage of outside shooting from the South Americans, scoring 20 points in 22 minutes. As a team, Argentina shot 11-27 from long range, good for a 41 percent clip, and shot 57 percent from the floor. Manu Ginobili was the catalyst for the offense -- not new Knick point guard Pablo Prigioni, who was largely silent while scoring nine points -- and he finished with 21 points.

Andrei Kirilenko spent the 2011-2012 season in Russia playing for CSKA Moscow. His familiarity playing with the European rules must have made him feel extra comfortable going into the Olympics (especially considering he’s Russia’s LeBron James and all), and he showed it in his team’s Olympic opener against the home team. Kirilenko exploded for 35 points on 14-17 shooting and led his team to an easy 95-75 victory over Great Britain.

Fresh off signing a two-year, $20 million contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Kirilenko was everywhere. Luol Deng, Great Britain’s best player coming off his best year yet in the NBA -- he even was named an Eastern Conference All Star -- was good as well, scoring 24 points to lead his team. But much like against the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the NBA playoffs, Deng showed he’s best as a complementary piece, not the headliner.

China played gamely against one of the 2012 Olympic favorites in men’s basketball. But the talented NBA veterans of Spain held off the largely non-NBA Chinese for a 97-81 victory to open Olympic group play.

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Marcelinho Huertas is 29, and one of the few true stars of the 2012 Olympic men’s basketball competition who has never played in the NBA. His performance in Sunday’s group play opener against Australia in Brazil’s 75-71 win proves that he might fit in just fine in the Association.

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The Nigerian national basketball team has a couple of players who have been NBA players in its frontcourt. But it was the Aminu who doesn’t play in the U.S. that carried Nigeria to a 60-56 win over Tunisia on Sunday.

Tunisia’s captain, Rzig Amine, had 18 points for his country in the loss, but the shooting guard only managed one rebound and one assist. Makram Ben Romdhane added 12 points, 12 rebounds and three assists, but committed seven turnovers on the day.