USA vs China, losing my basketball virginity

 

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By Etienne, 12 Aug 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

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 American Football, Basketball, Cricket, Olympics

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Here’s what I love about the Olympics: for a short period of time it gets us sporting fans to watch sports we wouldn’t normally bother with. I’m a rugby fan, and that’s the only sport I watch with any kind of regularity.

I also dabble in Formula One, American football, cricket (very seldom) and boxing (hardly ever).

I love sports in general though, but despite spending six months in the USA, I never really got into basketball. That is until I watched the USA versus China Olympic basketball game.

That was the first game that I’ve watched from beginning to end, and I liked it. I love the technical aspects of sports and it was interesting to see the teams’ different approaches: China scoring the three-pointers and the USA (dubbed the “Redeem Team” after only getting bronze at the previous Olympics in the sport they invented) counter-attacking from turnovers (almost like rugby) and dunking the two pointers.

What helped to keep my interest was that the teams were tied on 29-all midway through the second quarter.

In the end, the speed of the US team’s counter-attacks and their athleticism was just too much for the Chinese, and they took control of the game in the third quarter.

Having sat through an entire game and picking up some of the nuances, I find that I now quite like the sport.

It still doesn’t compete with rugby, but I’ll definitely be catching a few more games during the Olympics.

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