Olympic Gold Melee and Primeval Jousting: Basketball Team USA

USA versus Spain for the Gold 2008 in Basketball, by Pat Darnell

I remember being excited once. We were watching and cheering our basketball team in junior high school. For some reason our Pershing Pandas had a fantastic team who played and passed with a flow of motion. It was an emotional team. They had one guy named Mars who looked like a giraffe. He was tall for our age, and he was contrasted with a short guy named Keys. So Keys and Mars created an incredible tension for the other team, and great drama for us fans.

It's 4 AM and the US Basketball team just won its last game for the gold medal. It was very exciting. Our guys ran hard and played like they were a foot off the ground at all times. The Spaniards are taller over all, or so it seems. They are fleet too. They have some too tall forwards, who seemed to always be standing in the middle of the pathways to goals.

Yes, Spain's forwards looked like those enormous balustrades that are placed in the ocean where ferry's maneuver for docking. Big horns blowing, feet the size of Brooking to Alaska, huge white drawers catching the breeze of Kobe Bryant zipping by... describes the Spaniards. Those fellows must be drinking unpasteurized whole milk in the mornings; Tequila in the evening.

Team USA were golly-gee-bewhiskered all night, smiling at every shot, furrowed brows at every ref whistle and call, and a new way to pass the ball at every offense attack. They wanted badly to "play" but they were denied this by the big salamandar arms with knuckles dragging on their opponents.

One time the ball went back and forth like volley ball as our guys stole then they stole, all crazy like. Each time one broke for his goal, the camera would get caught going the wrong way, because the ball was intercepted again. The shot clock kept restarting. Then somebody tripped, and it was one of those get the man with the ball. I am positive the Spaniard's seven footers were tripping our guys. Both of them would be eight feet 6 inches tall if so much of them wasn't turned under. Their feet looked like river barges with a little extra ramp attached for loading tanks.

Every time the ball whipped through a bunch to the middle, some how all the crisis's converged on that very moment. It resembled a loose ruck in a rugby match underneath the basket, not just once but all night long. Once USA grabbed the lead, they held onto it for the rest of the game, though. Much due to the completion of free shots from the melee under the rims.

Our big guy, Duane Wade, sometimes looked like he was doing a butterfly stroke as he started toward the basket with the ball in both hands; only to have his arms slapped down while only his head continued to the hoop. Then with sweat flying everywhere, it resembled Mike Phelps on third leg of the swimming relays.

There also were unusual moments when bodies were sliding across the key, and piling up there amid lots of squirming. One or the other team mate would squirt out from underneath, and toss to a standing team mate; that's right, a lateral from the floor. In the old days, like I remember, this used to be a jump ball. The ref's in this match were alternating from turning into pillars of salt to back into ref's.

I remember the game got sweaty and hot in the gym at our alma mater Pershing. The floors had to be wiped several times by team supporters, because of players falling and sliding. Olympic Gold playoff tonight was just that playful. China's towel guys and gals had to mop up plenty all night. I got the feeling that this was a major joy for them.

Near the end Kobe Bryant sidled up to Coach, and sort of giggled, then poured a bottled water all over him. Very funny, you should've been there.

USA 118 -- Spain 107
Bronze goes to Lithuania