Kyrie Irving scored 15 points and the US men’s basketball team survived its second straight strong challenge in the Rio Games, edging Serbia 94-91.
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European champions Serbia used a strong run in the third quarter to defeat China 80-72 for their first win in Group B of the women’s basketball at Rio Olympics on Friday.
Serbia had a chance to tie the game with 5.2 seconds remaining, down by three, but Bogdan Bogdanovic missed the mark on a 3-point attempt and the US secured the rebound as time expired.
Serbia scored the first 8 points of the second half to increase their advantage to 48-34 and that grew to 66-43 by the end of the third quarter.
From that point on Serbia outscored the US 86-71, Serbian players moved the ball and moved off the ball, the U.S. jacked up isolations shots and missed their threes.
After opening the Rio Olympics with blowout wins over China and Venezuela, cracks are starting to show in the armor of a usually invincible USA team that have been put to the test against Serbia and Australia in their last two games.
After watching the United States of America verse Serbia game today, I was heated.
Klay Thompson ended an Olympic-long slump with seven 3-pointers and 30 points, and the Americans needed nearly all of them to hold off France 100-97 on Sunday.
Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovic found himself wide open on the left wing in the last second of Friday night’s Olympic men’s basketball preliminary game against the United States.
The Serbians (1-2) are coming off a one-point loss to France on a late Tony Parker basket, and they lost by 15 points to Australia after opening the Olympics with a 24-point rout of Venezuela.
The U.S. still has a game against France in Group A play before moving on to the knockout stage. Kyrie Irving led the United States with 15 points, while Paul George grabbed nine rebounds and DeMarcus Cousins led the United States with five assists.
She also followed fellow swimmers Amy Van Dyken and Missy Franklin as the only American women to win as many as four golds in a single Olympics. “Right now we’re just going through an adjustment period”, he said.
Give Serbia credit, they have talent.
The second-seeded German beat American Madison Keys 6-3, 7-5 in the semifinals, saving all 10 break points she faced.
“As good as we are, we can’t continue to keep playing like this”, George said.
Durant, who only attempted four shots, misfired with eight seconds left giving Serbia one last chance. Sure, this year’s team is missing many of America’s best players, most notably LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
On one side, there were talents like Irving, Durant, Anthony, George and DeMar DeRozan, who are so accustomed to taking over games at the highest level.
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U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski called Jokic “spectacular”. They’ll play China in their final game of the group phase.
