U.S. gets chance to fine-tune issues in win over Iran

ISTANBUL -- For the U.S. national team, there was not much to be gained from Wednesday's matchup with Iran. The result of this game was known once the groups for the 2010 FIBA World Championship were drawn last December.

The U.S. clinched the top seed in Group B with Wednesday's 88-51 win, but that was a foregone conclusion once they escaped with a win against Brazil on Monday.

So the challenge for Wednesday and Thursday, when the U.S. takes on 0-4 Tunisia (9:30 a.m. ET, ESPN2), was to find a way to move forward and prepare for the elimination rounds, which begin for the U.S. on Monday, against either Angola or Australia.

"It's really all about us," USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said Wednesday. "It's not who we're playing. It's us getting better each day and trying to prepare ourselves for what's coming in the next round, which is going to be a whole different ball game."

The U.S. learned from Monday's nail-biter that there are definitely issues that need to be addressed before the medal rounds begin. And they can say after Wednesday's laugher that some progress was made.

The biggest issue that must be fixed is the turnovers. The U.S. committed 22 of them against Brazil, while recording just eight assists. And in the first half against Iran on Wednesday, the U.S. continued to have issues taking care of the ball. On their first possession of the game, trying to get out in transition off a steal, Kevin Durant threw the ball behind Andre Iguodala and out of bounds.

The U.S. went on to commit six more turnovers in the first quarter. Though they didn't have much of a problem scoring when they held on to the ball, they were keeping Iran in the game with bad decisions, overpenetration and general carelessness.

"We just have to be sharp and not have careless turnovers," Iguodala said. "I think there's a difference between an aggressive turnover, some traveling calls, and the careless ones, where we're just kind of too cool sometimes."

Things improved after the sloppy first quarter. The U.S. committed just three turnovers in the second quarter, and just seven in the second half.

"One might be critical of the game tonight for some reasons," Colangelo said. "I thought the second half was much better than the first half in every respect."

The inferior opponent also allowed head coach Mike Krzyzewski to give his starters some rest, while keeping the second unit sharp. The extra playing time was particularly beneficial for Tyson Chandler and Danny Granger.

Chandler had his best game of the summer, scoring seven points and grabbing seven rebounds in 13 minutes. Granger found his jumper, scoring 10 points on 4-for-6 from the field. Kevin Love, who played just five minutes against Brazil, continued his amazing per-minute production, finishing with 13 points and six boards in 11 minutes.

Krzyzewski leaned heavily on his starters against Brazil, but he'd happily accept some consistency from his bench over these two games.

On the defensive end, it's difficult to know if anything got accomplished on Wednesday. While Iran had a skilled big man in Grizzlies center Hamed Haddadi, they didn't have any playmakers to challenge the U.S. defense in pick-and-roll situations. In exhibition play and against Brazil on Monday, the U.S. has had some trouble defending a precision offense with lots of ball and player movement.

"If I had one concern on our team, it's communication defensively," Iguodala said. "We've got some quiet guys whose nature is just to be quiet. But defensively, you've got to talk. Everybody has to be on one string, five guys on one string [with] rotations and pick and rolls. A lot of teams are going to try to hurt us with that."

The urgency to sharpen up on both ends of the floor may have increased on Tuesday. With Greece's loss to Turkey and Spain's loss to Lithuania, it became very likely that either Greece or Spain, two experienced and talented teams, would be the U.S. team's opponent in the quarterfinals, should they get through Angola or Australia.

By Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. players were well aware of the situation. Colangelo was too, and he knows that his team must take advantage of the three days it has between Thursday's Tunisia game and the round of 16.

"We've got work to do in practice before we start the next set," he said. "We need a couple of good practices."

John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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