The Americans will find something new in Macau, a ferry ride from Hong Kong that has surpassed Las Vegas in terms of annual money gambled.
It won’t be all fun and games, though, for a team that promises to take the remainder of its exhibition tour seriously.
“To me, it’s all part of a process,” USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said. “It doesn’t matter where we’re going, we have to get the job done in terms of preparing ourselves.”
The Americans beat Canada 120-65 on Friday in their opener, the first of what they hope is five straight victories before they arrive in Beijing in search of their first gold medal in eight years.
The Americans will play Turkey and Lithuania in Macau, then move to Shanghai for games against Russia and Australia. And though the games won’t count, don’t tell the U.S. players that they’re meaningless.
Dwyane Wade was on the team four years ago that left the U.S. believing it was the gold medal favorite following a 25-point victory over Puerto Rico. Then the Americans were routed 95-78 by Italy before barely escaping with a win over Germany in their first two exhibitions overseas.
Wade said when that group of players gathered for training camp, “You think it’s going to just work. But once we’d seen that it didn’t just work . . . we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us, that it wasn’t going to be easy.”
By the time the Americans saw Puerto Rico again in their Olympic opener, their confidence had been shaken, and their opponents knew they were facing a beatable team. They lost 92-73. So this group wants to avoid any defeats that could mess with their minds.
“It matters,” said LeBron James, who also played on the 2004 team. “We don’t have a lot of time to prepare. It’s not like 82 regular-season games where we have a lot of time. So we do have to get the rhythm and get ready for the Olympics, and the only way to do that is we continue to win.”
