KD was the leading scorer for the second straight friendly exhibition this weekend, after pacing the US with 23 points in nearly 21 minutes on Friday against Argentina. And it clearly didn’t affect him as he finished with a team-high 19 points in the rout.
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Yi Jianlian led China with 18 points and seven rebounds, as he was a flawless 8-of-8 from the free throw line. Cousins dominated the interior with 12 as the Americans raced to a 55-29 lead at the halftime buzzer.
While Curry made a decision to skip the Olympics, Green and Thompson will be with Durant for the duration, building chemistry and togetherness as the second trio of National Basketball Association teammates to play Olympic hoops together since the National Basketball Association joined the Games in 1992. It nearly seems unfair to pair the two against worldwide competition, but that’s for the rest of the world to figure out.
Kevin Durant is the adopted Splash Brother now. “Our defense was there pretty much the whole game”, he said.
None of that has seemed to matter with United States of America winning by 49 points over China and 37 over Argentina.
DeRozan had a good night with 13 points on 6-8 shooting from the field in just under 17 minutes of floor time. The 2016 US team will enter Rio riding a 41-game Olympic winning streak that dates back to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics bronze medal game.
Gong is no stranger to the gulf in class that exists between the U.S. and most of the teams they go up against.
They cruised past Argentina 111-74 on Friday.
And then in the offseason, Green added to his reputation with an incident in East Lansing for hitting (slapping?) a former Michigan State football player, among other accusations that didn’t put Green in the best of lights.
China really struggled shooting the ball the entire game.
After the drought, team US went on an offensive run that never allowed China to get control of the game.
USA Basketball will meet up with China again on Tuesday night at Oracle Arena at 10:00 p.m. He said the minutes eventually won’t be distributed as evenly as they were in the first two games but he’s waiting to see how well different combinations mesh. Two other China players were drafted in the second round of June’s draft: Houston’s Zhou Qi tallied two points and five fouls, while Memphis’ Wang Zhelin scored one point in 22 minutes. Every time I get a chance to step on the court with these players, I get better.
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Jordan, who is on his first senior national team, repeatedly stole the show with his rim rocking slam dunks and breathtaking block shots.
