It was nice seeing some familiar faces, like Kevin Durant, Paul George, James Harden, Steph Curry, Damian Lillard and Kyrie Irving, on the first day of USA Basketball practice in Vegas and it was even nicer seeing an old face, Derrick Rose (dunking!), that we have all been waiting to see the return of.

VIA USAB.com

The practices in Las Vegas culminate with an intrasquad scrimmage on Friday, Aug. 1, at the Thomas & Mack Center. Then on Aug. 14-16 the team continues its training camp in Chicago.

Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau ran a majority of the first practice on one court. It started out with a lot of walk-throughs and some specific plays but it didn’t take long to get the group starting to resemble teammates.

“It’s not going to happen in one day,” Thibodeau said, “but when you have the type of talent that we do, if you get them committed to playing basketball on both sides as a five-man group that’s your best chance for success.”

The National Team went 2-0 in a pair of 12-minute scrimmages against the Select Team, although both were close and each required a comeback. In the final scrimmage, the teams were split up more evenly for one 10-minute game. The result was an exciting back-and-forth affair that went down to the wire. The Blue Team, featuring Durant, James Harden and Paul George, among others, held on for a three-point victory.