The Los Angeles Clippers, who play their home games at Staples Center, were also on the short list.
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To recall, Team USA managed to dispatch Team China in Sunday’s match with a 106-57 win.
Unlike most other USA Olympic teams, whose athletes must qualify at trial events, basketball’s Olympians are chosen from a 30-player pool assembled by USA Basketball.
This year’s roster includes popular and familiar names from the National Basketball Association, such as New York Knicks small forward Carmelo Anthony, Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan, Golden State Warriors small forward Kevin Durant, and Warriors shooting Klay Thompson, just to name a few.
Klay Thompson was stellar with 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting in 19 minutes.
“We should have won, but the way we won was excellent”, Krzyzewski said. The other protagonist, Team Argentina, will hail from Group B together with the other friendly games participant, Nigeria.
Providing a preview of what’s to come this season, Green immediately set a screen, freeing up Durant for a 3-pointer from the top of the key.
“They all impressed me because I like when people play hard and they play together”, he said.
Jordan finished with 12 points, five rebounds, three blocks and a parade of rim-rattling dunks.
USA Basketball will meet up with China again on Tuesday night at Oracle Arena at 10:00 p.m.
“No, I didn’t hear it”, Durant said when told he had been booed during pregame introductions.
“Our defense was there pretty much the whole game”. Even though it’s only an exhibition series happening right now, the U.S. has showed why they are more powerful than everyone else.
“Those two guys are two of the best shooters in the world so our guys want them to get shots”, U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Argentina has four guys who have played, if you add their global experience, they’ve probably played I bet 800-1000 games for their country”. Here, the Chinese team is a younger Team.
Krzyzewski added emphatically added about Jordan, “As good as I thought he was on T.V. or tape, he’s better”. Still, it made the news, and anyone who was looking for new reasons to dislike Green and the Warriors, got them with abundance over the last two months.
This is perhaps a little surprising considering it was a Team USA game, but by signing with Golden State, Durant knew he was going to be booed wherever he goes that isn’t Oakland (Mark Cuban may even call him a villain).
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United States of America held an overmatched and inexperienced China team to 31% shooting and forced 26 turnovers.
