USA v. Greece

[jbduke]

"Kinda took out the dude's formarm"? Even if I agreed with that, the lead official had no way of having a clear look at that play. That was a far worse call than Duncan's fifth. Chuck is right that there was no extension, but even with the acting job, there was at least a clear advantage gained. That said, the best decision on both plays would have been to suck, not blow.

Really, though, it's a shame, the way FIBA puts so many obstacles to success in front of the men and women who work these games. Two-whistle crews at this level, in this day and time, are absolutely farcical. And what about communication problems? I don't think I'm assumig too much to guess that the Serbian in that crew doesn't speak fluent Spanish, and the Spaniard doesn't speak fluent Serbio-Croatian. Even conceding greater language breadth of the average European relative to Americans, chances diminish greatly when you're looking at connecting the dots between an Eastern and a Western European. The best bet would be English, but it certainly didn't look like the USA team was having an easy time communicating with either official.