BEIJING — Not long after the conclusion of the Team USA-Germany men’s basketball game Monday, someone asked Chris Kaman, who came to Deutschland via the Los Angeles Clippers, if he thought the Americans had suffered a letdown in the contest.
Maybe something got lost in the translation, leading Kaman to look back at the scoreboard.
“Dude, I think they just beat us by 50,” he said. “What letdown?”
The actual margin was only 49, 106-57, but the point was well taken. Its place as the top seed in the medal round already ensured, Team USA could have indeed looked upon the game as a breather before Wednesday’s quarterfinal matchup against Australia. Instead, playing before an audience that included the one and only Michael Phelps, the Americans barely let the Germans walk onto the court before throwing them into the deep end of the pool.
“Going against Greece or going against Spain (highly regarded teams that had given the Americans fits in recent years), it’s pretty easy to get up for those,” said LeBron James, who scored 18 points for the winners. “Tonight was a night where it could have been ‘one of those nights.’ To come in and play better against Germany than we did against Spain was pretty big.”
Now comes a game against Australia, the fourth-place team from the other preliminary group. Although the Americans and Australians haven’t met in the Beijing Games, Team USA won an exhibition meeting, 87-76, in Shanghai on Aug. 5.
The Aussies played that game without former University of Utah star Andrew Bogut, another NBA center. That led to another question for Kaman — whether the Milwaukee Bucks pivotman could be the difference in braking an American train that appears to be running away to the gold medal.
But Kaman looked just as dumbfounded as after the other query.
“This is the best team the U.S. has had since the Dream Team (gold medalists at Barcelona in 1992). No one’s going to beat them, it’s just not going to happen,” Kaman said. “Everyone is playing so great, they could take anyone lightly and still beat ’em.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com