Olympic 5 Things: United States vs Spain ... for Gold

The Olympic men's basketball tournament ends tonight, with the gold medal game between the United States and Spain. FanHouse will live blog the show, beginning at 2:30 a.m. EST. Until then, five things to watch for tonight.

Can the Spanish smalls handle it? The Americans have dominated at every position. As Spain enters without its best guard and second-best player overall -- Jose Calderon is out with an injury -- how much more emboldened will Team USA's backcourt be? Chris Paul can cut up the NBA's best, and should have no problem destroying Raul Lopez and Ricky Rubio. Even Jason Kidd, not as a good a player today as Calderon, should be able to roam with freedom. On the other end, relaxing off of Rubio should be the defense of choice -- Ricky is shooting less than 30% for the tournament and has yet to prove he can nail open jumpers.

Will Pau bounce back? Pau Gasol's had a great tournament overall, but didn't do a whole lot of anything against the United States last week. Spain's chances are nil if Pau doesn't go off in a huge way. He -- along with brother Marc and homies Jorge Garbajosa and Jose Reyes -- need to control the boards (plausible) and keep Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh in check (somewhat less plausible) while scoring efficiently and keeping turnovers at a minimum. Tall, tall task.

Rudy. With Calderon out, Lopez aging and Rubio green, Rudy Fernandez takes on increased importance. Obviously, Spain wouldn't be in the gold medal game with Rudy's great production to date. He needs to be even better. He can compete with Kobe, LeBron and Wade, but he's clearly a few tiers below most nights. He needs a flukey good night to propel his team.

Turnovers. This fits into the first two points, but it bears emphasis: Spain cannot turn the ball over an average amount or worse and have a hope of survival. Team USA is just too good in transition. If Rubio gets the call, he needs to show patience and care over his more typical hot-dog flair. Lopez's priority should be getting the ball into his scorers' hands safely -- Pau in the post, Rudy on the wing. Likewise, those scorers need to be extra careful not to expose themselves in traffic (scandalous!) or bat the ball off their limbs. Every possession is vital for Spain.

Just show up? Does Team USA just need to show up to win? No ... the U.S. needs to be adequate. Any team can get hot -- Spain certainly has the weapons to open up a battle, just as Argentina without Manu Ginobili did on Friday. I have little doubt Team USA will be impeccably focused, as it has been all tournament. If so, I see little chance for Spain to overcome the talent disparity.

Once again, we'll be liveblogging tonight. Check us out.