These two countries compose the deep second-tier below the United States that also includes, but may not be limited to, Argentina and Russia. No team is perfect and these teams certainly apply.

Brazil is too reliant on Marcelinho Huertas and Tiago Splitter hasn’t consistently dominated lesser opponents. Spain, playing without point guard prodigy Ricky Rubio, didn’t muster up their requisite defense intensity level in their 77-74 loss against Russia.

***

All in all, this match promises to be an interesting match with quite a storyline. Will Spain improve their play and show everyone why people predicted them to be USA’s strongest foe? Or will Brazil beat Spain, adding salt to an open, vulnerable wound?

Brazil will open the game with their usual starting lineup — Huertas manning the point, Leandro Barbosa, Marcus Vinicius, Anderson Varejao and Nene while Splitter and Alex Garcia will lead the Brazil’s bench.

Spain’s lineup consists of Jose Calderon, Juan Carlos Navarro, who may miss today’s game with a foot injury, Rudy Fernandez, Pau Gasol and Marc Gasol. Serge Ibaka, Sergio Rodriguez, Sergio Llull and Victor Claver remain one of the better benches in international play.

As for the game itself, expect Spain to put an extra focus on Huertas which should open up the paint for Nene, Splitter and Varejao to carve up ample space and hopefully capitalize offensively. On offense, Spain may try to pound it inside more as they’ll try to get one of Brazil’s trio of big men in foul trouble so they can alleviate the pressure for their talented guards. It may have the looks of close game till the end, but I believe Spain’s deep firepower, however depleted as they may be, will prove to be the difference.

That is what I’m talking about, yo. He had 24 points in this old-school looking game. It was an old ABA-style game with seven players in double figures. Give me more of this, please. I’ve been skeptical of these three games sans-Gino. Golden State is learning defense, Dallas has no desire, and tonight? Well Denver was without Nene.

I suppose it doesn’t even matter mentioning who is on what kind of multi-game in multi-nights. This wasn’t as big a game as it would have been but regular season basketball is all about getting wins however you can.

The most important stat is that we are six wins to the good and only two wins to the bad. Tomorrow we’ll face an Oklahoma City team that squeaked out a win against Houston tonight.

OKC is young and talented … but so are we …?

Yeah. Danny Green has always had potential. Tonight he turned some of that into kinetic scoring, yo. Maybe Denver was terrible on defense and a little off without their best player, but they are good. TJ Ford was dishing the rock. Everyone contributed and Timmy got rest. He’ll need it to battle against Kendrick Perkins tomorrow.

This is good stuff.

The other story? Richard Jefferson.

Something makes me thing that this may not be the early season fluke that he displayed last season. He looks aggressive. He looks like the dude that we traded for a couple years ago. Like I said at the beginning of the season, I take these games one at a time and for what they are. I don’t expect more or less. I take whatever RJ gives us.

Tonight? That was 19 points and 5/8 from three and a sweet-ass block-and-three that is the highlight of the night.

Tomorrow night I don’t expect that. I’ll be looking at Tony Parker to take on the scoring. The road is a different animal and shooters start to miss. Role players start to get scared and make mistakes. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I’ll go ahead and admit that I am a lot more excited about everything. Probably more than I should be. For that, I’ll thank Danny Green and Richard Jefferson.

Go Spurs Go.