The blowouts are over.
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Carmelo rescues Team USA from disaster in vintage show: For two games at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the tests thrown at Team USA men’s basketball team was as tough as a third-grade arithmetic quiz for Einstein.
“We knew we were going to get their best”, George said.
Boasting NBA superstars such as Kevin Durrant, Carmelo Anthony, Kyrie Irving and Paul George the United States still could not get to grips with the hugely motivated Australians and they went into half-time looking thoroughly rattled.
Australia may have two heartbreaking losses in the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympics in cycling and basketball, but the 10-point lead in the Boomers’ game versus Team USA caused a Twitter meltdown on Wednesday night.
Irving – born in Australia – added 19 points, including a 3-pointer with 1:35 left after Australia had pulled within four.
A team that won its first two games by a combined 101 points could never get a comfortable lead – and for a while couldn’t get one at all. The Australians, with big bodies inside, quality point guards to counter the American pressure and a wealth of National Basketball Association championship experience, stood toe to toe with the team that had blown them out of the past two Olympics in the quarterfinals.
Anthony, a four-time Olympian and the Team USA leader, finished with a game-high 31 points to leapfrog David Robinson and LeBron James on the list of all-time leading scorers at the Olympics among American players.
“From playing against Australia over the past couple of years, coming into tonight, knowing the type of team they are, knowing the type of players they have on the team – we knew it was going to come down to the end of the game where we had to make plays down the stretch”.
For the Boomers NBA star Patty Mills was phenomenal finishing with 30 points as big guns Andrew Bogut and Matthew Dellavedova stood up yet again although Bogut said he was disappointed by the result. Kevin Lisch, the Belleville native who played at SLU before becoming an Australian citizen, played just two minutes and didn’t score.
The U.S. scored the final five points in the last 27 seconds on free throws, with Irving hitting the first three. The U.S. squad beat them there by 33 points, ousting Australia from the tournament in the quarterfinal round.
She broke the mark early in the third quarter and finished the game with six 3’s to set a new U.S. Olympic mark.
While the USA had easily routed Senegal and Spain in its first two games, winning by an average of 52.5 points, it had a harder time against the hot-shooting Balkan nation. We accepted it. We know that feeling, and we don’t want to experience that feeling anymore. At half-time, Twitter was agog over the possibility that the United States team could lose.
“They’re a very talented, very athletic and long team and they’re No.1 in the world for a reason”.
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It was the second consecutive game the Americans were tied after one quarter. In his expanded role on the Olympic stage, Mills, who turns 28 today (happy birthday, Patty!), is now averaging 26 points per game.
