The night Team Canada gave the Dream Team a 'scare'

Before the Dream Team became Olympic gold medalists at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Michael Jordan and company found themselves in tough against the pesky Canadians.

Looking back at the final score of the June 29, Tournament of the Americas game, it seems comical that the United States thought it was in tough against Canada. The Dream Team won 105-61 playing without Larry Bird and John Stockton. Yet newspaper from the time tell a very different story.

"A day after leading Cuba 67-27 at halftime, the United States had to settle for a 50-33 lead at intermission in an eerily quiet Memorial Coliseum," Ira Winderman wrote in the Sun Sentinal. "Even when the lead reached 30 with 13 minutes to play, there clearly was a look of concern along the bench."

After the game Dream Team coach Chuck Daly agreed it wasn't an impressive win.

"Tonight we just weren't as sharp," he told reporters. "I kind of expected that. We let them hang around a little bit."

The only time Canada was really able to hang around with the Americans was prior to the game when Canadian coach Ken Shields arranged for both teams to get a photo taken together.

At the time, a 32-year-old Leo Rautins thought the idea was crazy.

"All the guys are jumping up like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ And I’m like, the game’s over. You’re just waving the white flag," Rautins told Julian McKenzie of Press Basketball. "It was crazy to me because that was like putting 20 points on a scoreboard right there."

But as Canadian forward J.D. Jackson said, it wouldn't have mattered. The Dream Team was destined for greatness and Canadian Basketball was still in its infancy, years away from producing the kind of talent it does today.