Team USA vs Canada Men's Basketball: Olympic Warmup

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00:00Elsewhere, a lot of basketball on this Wednesday. Team USA begins its warm-ups

00:10for the Olympic Games. 1030 p.m. Eastern Time, late night out, I believe, in Las

00:18Vegas. Team USA will take on Canada. That will be televised on FS1. Canada has the

00:26second-best price to win the gold medal at the Olympic Games, and their roster

00:31star-studded. No odds out for this specific game just yet, but Team USA will

00:37face off against the Canadians. Here's the Canada roster, again, with some studs.

00:42Shea Gilgis-Alexander, he's going to be an NBA MVP frontrunner next year. Jamal

00:47Murray, Lou Dort, R.J. Barrett, Dylan Brooks, who always gets under people's

00:51skins, and Kelly O'Lennon. Kevin Durant will not play tonight due to a calf, but

00:58should be a good warm-up test for the Americans against the Canadians. And also,

01:03like, people are going to take a lot out of this, even though it is an exhibition

01:06game. They're going to watch this, and if Canada plays well and or wins this game,

01:09that is going to change some of the minds here moving forward to the

01:12Olympics, even though it is, as we say, an exhibition. Canada also wants to put that

01:16foot, that rumor out there for, let's just say, that they can win the Olympics. It's

01:20not just only Team USA coming out there to do some damage, but also, I date some

01:25of these games back to when I was growing up in 1992, when the Dream Team

01:29was originally coming out. I remember everybody gathered around their TV pre-

01:33Olympics. I believe they were playing in Portland, Oregon, where they were having

01:37those exhibition games. It was the coolest thing because we had never seen a

01:40team assembled like this, and everybody wanted to watch even before the Olympics

01:44started. Obviously, it's not on that same plane, but there is a lot of talent on

01:48this USA team. Some years we get to the Olympics, it's like, man, they had to ask

01:52like five, six, seven, eight, nine different tandems of guys if they wanted to play.

01:56This wasn't the case. The superstars are coming out to play, and it's just fun to

02:00watch them play. It's just a shame it's on a little bit later out there in Las

02:03Vegas, but certainly a lot of people are going to be tuned into this one because

02:06it's fun. Star-studded basketball is always fun. You saw this five-game warm-up

02:11set next game up exhibition-wise for Team USA Monday against Australia. Then

02:17next week on Wednesday against the Koliokic and the Serbians. South Sudan,

02:22the fourth of five games, and they finish with a warm-up test against Germany

02:27before they head over to Paris for the Olympic Games. Team USA a hefty favorite,

02:33minus 470 to win the gold medal, but the Canadians have that second best number

02:38at 11-1. There will be more odds to bet by the time we get to the

02:42Olympiad for basketball, and I look forward to betting maybe some of those

02:47teams to face off in the final with Team Canada. You would expect Nikola

02:52Jokic can lead the Serbians there. Janis Antetokounmpo, of course, a member of

02:57Greece, leading the Greeks to their first Olympic Games since 2008. Donnie,

03:04when you look at Canada, the last time these two international teams faced each

03:08other, last summer at the FIBA World Cup in the bronze medal game, we didn't have

03:13our star-studded roster for Team USA that we have this year. Steph Curry

03:17wasn't there, LeBron James wasn't there, some other superstars that are a part of

03:22this year's crop, but Canada beat us in the bronze medal game. Dylan Brooks scored

03:27nearly 40, and of course he is going to be using all of that motivation today in

03:31the first warm-up game out in Las Vegas. Yeah, and the one thing we have to

03:35understand when you get to the Olympics, unlike the NBA playoffs, we say, well, the

03:39cream usually rises to the top because we give you seven games here. Hard to

03:42beat the better team in four out of those seven games. Not the case in the

03:45Olympics. You just need one off game in that knockout stage where one team goes

03:49crazy from three-point range and really has an edge over Team USA. We've seen it

03:53happen in the past, and we're hoping it doesn't happen this time around, but

03:56that's what makes it so much fun. It's basically, what, a 10-day tournament as

03:59opposed to a two-and-a-half-month tournament like the NBA playoffs. So all

04:03you need is one really good game from a quality opponent. You can knock Team USA

04:07out. Yeah, absolutely so. There will be pool play to start, then into the

04:12medal round, but by the time you get to the medal round, it's single elimination.

04:16One bad 40-minute stretch, which I think is the amount of time in FIBA rules. The

04:21physicality is more. There's no three seconds in the paint. Keep an eye on the

04:25French because of that, with both Victor Wemenyama and Rudy Gobert a part of the

04:29French national team, and France has that third-best number at 16-to-1, and

04:35alongside Serbia, 16-to-1 as well. Should be a good display again today between

04:41Team USA and the Canadians. I would expect, if a line were to come out, the

04:46Americans to still be a hefty favorite, but it's just warm-ups. Regardless, the

04:52takeaways tomorrow will be worth noting. If the Americans blow out Canada, hey,

04:57great start. This is the team that we expect to win yet another gold medal. If

05:02it's not very easy against the Canadians, could we poke some holes in the roster

05:07to try to have some narratives before we head over to Paris in just about two

05:12and a half weeks?

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