Krzyzewski, United States trying to catch up

MADRID (FIBA World Championship) - Mike Krzyzewski admitted the United States are still playing catch up as they arrived in Madrid to continue their preparations for the FIBA World Championship.

The team arrived in Europe on Tuesday having spent last week in a training camp in New York.

That was only the team's second week together following an earlier camp in Las Vegas, hardly ideal when Krzyzewski is trying to mould a very new team.

However, the United States looked strong in beating China and France in New York at the weekend, and Krzyzewski is going to work as if training camp never really ends from here on out - including after the World Championship actually starts.

"Each day, and even when pool play ends we have a little bit of time, so really the training camp never ends," he said.

"Hopefully by the time we get to the medal round we’ll be at our best. It’s like trying to bring our team along every day. That’s why the scrimmage (versus China) and the exhibition game (versus France) in Madison Square Garden were good for us. We learned a lot and we played pretty well.

"We need to play better than that but we played very well considering we have had just eight practices and first game and all that kind of stuff. That’s how I’ve looked at it, not to think you’re going to get everything in right away, that’s just not gonna happen. That’s where the other teams have an advantage over us in that they’ve been together.

"Like Spain, some of those guys have been together for 10 years. We can’t do that, but you can try and do it as well as you can with this group and these guys."

The States will spend the week training in Madrid before taking on Lithuania and Spain this weekend and then heading to Greece next week.

And Kyzyzewski has plenty on his to do list.

"I think transition in both offense and defense (come first)," he said. "We need more movement when we’re coming down the court so we don’t just stop. Our defense is good in the half court, really good, but in the full court sometimes are bigs are coming too far back and in the international game all the bigs shoot so we have to fan out a little bit. "Offensively, we haven’t worked really on our half court execution like we have with our defense so for the next couple of days we’re going to really work on half court offense."