ATHENS, Greece - Even their toughest critic climbed off their backs after this one. For a little while, anyway. So maybe it’s time for the folks back in America to think about doing the same.

Show them a little love.

Granted, coach Larry Brown didn’t stay off Team USA for long. And maybe all it proves is that Brown reached deep into his bag of motivational tricks late Saturday night and realized reverse psychology was the last gimmick left.

But after Lithuania won a duel of nerves down the stretch and beat back Team USA 94-90, this is what he said at least three different times: “We’re getting better.”

His team might be fatally flawed, and worse, Brown knows he can’t do a thing about it. The players who volunteered for this excursion left home without a jump shot and it’s not something offered at any of the duty-free shops they visited on the way over.

Former University of Maryland guard and NBA wannabe Sarunas Jasikevicius reminded them of that, handing Team USA its second loss by knocking down three straights 3s in a 1:09 span of the fourth quarter. That’s as many as this collection of NBA talent could muster in an entire game during its opening loss to Puerto Rico.

But this time, at least, there was no questioning their effort.

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Check out every one of the so-called hustle statistics in the game and you’ll find the suddenly plucky boys in blue acquitted themselves honorably. They were dead-even in rebounds with 31, had more than three times as many steals as Lithuania, nearly twice as many points in the paint and more second-chance points. They spent so much time cleaning the floor with the backs of their sweaty jerseys that the kids who stand under each basket with a mop didn’t have anything to do.

“It’s hard for them to play much better. It really comes down to being able to put the ball in the basket,” Jasikevicius said.

The players know what everybody back home is saying. They may not have newspapers slipped under the doors of their staterooms on the Queen Mary every morning, but even here, halfway around the world, they feel the sting. Brown has seen to that.

But just to be sure, he followed his pat on the back with what has become an almost daily slap across the face. It came, almost predictably, after Brown was asked whether USA Basketball should consider hiring a foreign coach to help school NBA players in the international style — maybe something like a Berlitz course in basketball.

“I’m amazed by those comments because I don’t think it has anything to do with the international style,” he began.

The question had the effect of somebody pulling the scab off an old wound.

Brown started reflexively smacking his guys around once more for their poor shooting, defensive lapses and a lack of teamwork. He even turned on his bosses at USA Basketball for letting a handful of players from the team that mowed down the competition at the qualifying round in Puerto Rico — Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, Jason Kidd and Ray Allen — get off the plane before it landed in Athens.

Once he got going, Brown was so into it, he even smacked himself.

“If somebody can teach shooting in a quick, quick period of time,” he said, “he can come to Detroit and take my job.”

Memo to LB: Not going to happen.

After Team USA squeaked by Greece, Brown said that shooting is a lost art in the NBA. Strangely, Jasikevicius finished up his college career at Maryland four years ago and he’s had exactly one offer from an NBA team and that was for the league minimum. So he decided to stay in Europe and play. And whether America likes it or not, this tournament is being played on that turf with international rules.

Brown has tried to drive that message home for so long that he went hoarse a week ago. But all the screaming hasn’t been a complete waste. His guys have started to play harder, smarter and for each other. They’re finally moving the ball with some purpose on offense, covering each other’s backs on defense and the finger-pointing, if it still goes on, is taking place only behind closed practice doors.

Whether it’s too late for Brown’s crash-course to do any good remains to be seen. But considering how much abuse Team USA has absorbed already, a little love might go a long way right about now.

Perhaps mindful of that, a half-dozen members of the much more successful U.S. women’s team came out and sat courtside for this one. Save for a few other pockets of flag-waving countrymen, these guys have been playing in front of crowds so hostile they could carry their chants from the arena to the U.S. embassy downtown without missing a beat.

Yes, they’re pros and they get paid handsomely to play on the road and it sounds corny to say they’re trying their best. But they’re out of ideas and running out of time and right about now, any support at all would certainly be appreciated.