During the course of USA Basketball training camp, players will be checking in on a regular basis to give you the scoop on what's going on in Las Vegas and in the minds of the team as they prepare for the 2006 FIBA World Championships.

Gilbert Arenas | Chris Paul
Previous Player Blogs: Aug. 1 | July 31 | Week One from Las Vegas

It felt good coming back to Las Vegas. You get back home and it's like, "Oh, what do I do?" You've been hanging with the fellas for the last week and a half bonding. Then you go back home. I had to shoot a commercial with Chauncey Billups, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Tracy McGrady, so when I got back I was bragging like, "Yeah! My first commercial's coming up."

But we kicked it in right where we left off. We came back hard, practicing hard. In the game last night, we did a wonderful job. The most important thing we did is we all played hard. We went out there and we played defense. We were disruptive. we didn't let them get into a rhythm. Everybody says, "They had 30 turnovers," but the most impressive stat to me was they only had two assists. That's great because your point guard, your twos and your threes are the most important thing in international ball.

And even though Carlos Arroyo is touching the ball, we're going to get him in shape. We're going to make him run back and forth. You know he's going to play 40 minutes a game. We're not playing 40 minutes a game. We've got three All-Stars at the one, two, three. Your one-mans, your two-mans, there are All-Stars. So, we're just going to keep running and running and running for 15 minutes. He's playing 40 so he's going to be tired.

Tomorrow's exhibition will have different lineups. People might play a little longer. People are going to sit a little bit longer. But we're still just trying to get a feel for what works and just giving people rhythms. Right now I don't have my rhythm shooting, but that's why I'm trying to focus on defense right now.

After that, we go to Asia. To get ready, everybody's got their video games and making sure they've got the right cables and cords, so we can hook up our TVs and stuff. I'm a Halo player, so for all my Halo fans out there, I'll be online.

Other than that, when we actually hit these States again, we want to come back with a gold.

To tell you the truth a lot of guys said it was like we never left Las Vegas because the break was only a couple days. I think guys were excited to get back here. A lot of us have great relationships off the court, so we're just excited to be able to hang out together and then come on the court and do what we love to do -- play ball together. It doesn't get any better than that.

I think everyone did a great job in last night's scrimmage. We really picked it up full court and were very aggressive and that's the way we're going to have catch teams off guard because I think a lot of times they expect us to come out and play so casually.

The other guys tease me about dunking and when I got the pass last night -- I don't know who passed it; It might have been D Wade -- at first I was going to leave it for him, but I thought, "No, no, let me do it myself." I've gotten dunks against these guys during the season and they try to act like they don't remember it, but that's cool. I let it go. LeBron, 'Melo, D Wade, all of them tried to tell me I about broke my arm when I fell, which I did.

We have to approach tomorrow's exhibition with Puerto Rico the same way as the scrimmage and understand that now they know how aggressive we're going to be. So we've just got to come out and be ready to play. It's just like playing in the NBA, you never play a team one time. We play Puerto Rico twice in three days and then again when we get over to Japan. So, we've just got to come out with the same intensity and understand that they're going to be ready to get us back.