Angola Meets Actual Goal of Losing to Team USA by Less Than 40

Team USA faces off against Greece at 7:05 a.m. (central) on Thursday in what should be its stiffest test in the Olympics so far. After romping it up against China, it was much the same for Kobe and Co. this morning against Angola.

Some gems from another solid Chris Sheridan USA Hoops piece...

Halftime numbers:

It was an 18-point game at halftime -- Angola's Carlos Morais already had 10 turnovers at that point, and Dwight Howard (5-for-5), LeBron James (5-for-5), Dwyane Wade (3-for-3), Carmelo Anthony (3-for-3) and Chris Bosh (2-for-2) all were perfect from the field...

Kobe!:

...and Kobe Bryant recovered from an 0-for-7 start to score four of five U.S. buckets, the third on a breakaway 360-degree dunk, to begin a 20-7 run that built the lead to 27 in the second half.

Scouting Greece:

Team USA's next game is against Greece, a smashmouth team that pounded and prodded Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman into submission Tuesday on the second day of men's basketball competition at the Olympics. Greece played a suffocating, stifling and occasionally dirty brand of defense that completely flummoxed the Germans in its 87-64 victory.

"That's their style. They try to beat you up," said Kaman, who was triple-teamed the first time he touched the ball and had just four points and two rebounds with five turnovers.

Then there was the usually mild-mannered Nowitzki, who lost his cool after getting slugged one too many times by Greek center Andreas Glyniadakis and responded with a slug of his own, earning an unsportsmanlike foul (the FIBA equivalent of a flagrant foul) midway through the third quarter of a game in which the Greeks were already in full control...

...Coach K's take: "[The Greeks] play as hard as anybody, especially on the defensive end of the court. Their offensive schemes are well conceived. Their team starts with their guards, and they really have three point guards, and all three of them can be in at the same time. They really value possessions; you have to play them possession by possession, and you have to play them with great intensity for 40 minutes.

And, my favorite, Angola's meeting its goal:

Angola's only aim was to lose to the Americans by a margin of less than 40 points (it had lost by 46 in 2004, 33 in 1996 and 68 in 1992 against the Dream Team).

"We have achieved the goal of today's game. We tried to minimize the gap," Morais said. "Through this game, we understand that we can compete with them. Generally speaking, I am happy with the result."

There's something depressing and genuinely endearing about that one.

I'm toying with the idea of live-blogging the USA-Greece game, but I don't know if I'd be able to offer up anything behind "oh, sweet dunk!," "LeBron!", etc...

We'll see.