Anthony finished Wednesday’s game with 31 points, including nine three-point field goals.
Advertisement
The Americans defeated the Australians 98-88 to claim its third straight win in the tournament.
San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills helped keep Australia in the preliminary-round game with 30 points.
Diana Taurasi and her USA teammates knew they’d be in for a test against Serbia.
Team USA fared better scoring threes, which comprised of 44 percent of their total scoring, than twos.
But Mills’ silky skills went under the radar as he dominated the scoring and maintained his position as the leading scorer of all nations at the Games.
Anthony also became the all-time leading scorer in US men’s Olympic history with 293 points. Still they continued to battle, and the lead stayed within four for most of the remainder of the game, no matter who was on the floor for the Boomers. If his facial expressions on teammates’ SnapChat videos didn’t get the point across, Anthony came to Rio strictly for business reasons.
But Mills will trade any individual statistics for the chance to chase a medal. “We’re probabaly going to see them again and we’ve got to do a better job of matching them”.
“We lost”, he said. “We’re fine playing physical, that’s our game in the National Basketball Association, but if they going to allow us to play that way they got to play it both ways”. They were timely and big and he took it upon himself to lead us.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski really tightened his rotation in the second half, mostly relying on Anthony, Irving, Jordan, Paul George and Klay Thompson. “It was an adjustment for us”. That’s as close as the game would get though, as the Canadians took turns hitting big buckets down the stretch to close this one out. “Just like when we all come together, it’s just a special moment”. Australia took one more lead, before an Anthony three-point shot gave the red, white and blue a 75-72 point lead with a little over seven minutes remaining in the fourth. But Andersen said they would not be daunted by the clash after winning their first two matches for the first time in Australian Olympic history.
Team USA, after blowouts of China (119-62) and Venezuela (113-69) in their first two games, had its first tough test in Rio against Australia.
“We just also played harder”, he said, adding that Team USA will also improve from the fight Australia offered, even though struggle is nothing new for the players on the roster.
It is telling that U.S. scored less than 100 points for the first time in the tournament, showing that Australia’s defense was the best that United States of America have faced in the tournament. We may play them [again] down the track.
“At the end of the day I was in my zone”, Anthony said. “Credit them, they played very, very well in the fourth”.
Advertisement
“For us, it was a heck of a win because we beat an outstanding team”, Coach K said. That’s the first real, real global we’ve had.
