Athens, Greec ? Postmortem began before the United States men’s basketball team breathed its last gasp in these Olympics on Saturday night.

The nagging question — what happened? — was being posed even as Team USA, to its credit, rebounded from Friday’s semifinal loss to Argentina by outgunning Lithuania, 104-96, in the bronze-medal game at Olympic Indoor Hall.

Actually, it has been eating at USA Basketball officials since the team opened Olympic play with a 19-point loss to Puerto Rico two weeks ago. And with their gold-medal chances gone, it weighed heavily on the minds of players and coaches all day Saturday.

“This probably was the hardest game I’ve ever been involved in as a coach,” coach Larry Brown said. “And I think my players probably would say the same thing.

“To come back after that loss with the expectations people have for us, this game to me was a very good thing for American basketball. These guys showed a lot of class and a lot of character.”

The Americans certainly had to play inspired basketball to beat a Lithuanian team that was 21-of-37 from three-point range.

Lithuania, which handed the U.S. one of its three defeats in these Olympics, seemed poised to shut the United States out of a medal — something that never has happened in America’s 15 Olympic basketball appearances.

“We’re professionals at the highest level,” guard Richard Jefferson said.

“And even though we didn’t win the gold, and people want to talk a lot of crap about us, we gave our all every single game.”

Brown praised his players Saturday and suggested that fans and media should appreciate — not condemn — the fact that they came to Athens, while at least 14 other NBA players pulled out or declined invitations.

“It’s not about who didn’t come,” NBA commissioner David Stern said. “We’re all in sports. You take your team to the gym, and you play with who you’ve got, and you either win or you lose.

“This carping and whining is not fair to the young men and young women who are representing our country very well.”

Stern was asked whether some of the negative media and public sentiment was partly a result of taking cues from Brown.

Brown has noted that USA Basketball’s selection process needed to be tweaked to allow for the inclusion of two or three role players.

“I just think it’s fair to say, sometimes the way the leader’s traditional ways to motivate a team doesn’t quite play out as well when you’re in an international setting,” Stern said.

After the bronze-medal victory, Brown declined to offer specific ideas for how to improve the selection process. But he did say that he hoped there would be a day when NBA and international FIBA rules were standardized, so everyone in the world played by the same rules.

Stu Jackson, the NBA senior vice president of operations who chairs the 10-member USA Basketball Senior National Team Committee, said Saturday that he believed that rules eventually would be standardized, but said it wasn’t a major problem in these Games.

Stern, Jackson and Brown agree that Team USA would have fared better in Athens with more training time. They say USA Basketball must find a solution to that problem, if not before the 2006 World Championships, then certainly before the 2008 Olympics.