While neither favored American team was in action, several squads with legitimate medal hopes took to the court, and majority did so with the goal of improving their seeding so as to avoid Team USA until the gold-medal game at the earliest. Well, Durant’s doing the same thing late in these games and it’s hurting Team USA. “This is how we play and how we are going to keep playing, not just this tournament but always as long as Serbia has a team”.
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Draymond Green only played 13 minutes in the United States’ 94-91 win Friday over Serbia in the an Olympic men’s basketball pool play battle. The Americans needed a revitalized Carmelo Anthony to spearhead a second half comeback to overcome Australia’s hardly intimidating duo of Andrew Bogut and Patty Mills with a 98-88 score at the final buzzer. A dicey 10-point win over Australia begat a three-point win over Serbia.
But aggressive perimeter defense can be susceptible to good pick-and-roll play and ball movement. And that’s why the US couldn’t simply dominate Serbia and prove the last game was a fluke. Not only would China need to beat the US, which is highly unlikely, but Serbia would need to lose its matchup against Senegal, which has been outscored by an average of 41.5 points over its first four games.
George said the US players were “not too concerned”, adding that they were still getting to know each other and such challenges were valuable learning experiences for the medal rounds. Team USA (3-0) won the teams’ last meeting in the World Cup by 37 points after falling into an early five-point deficit. The Serbians shot 51% on the night, hitting 10 three pointers, and picking up 23 assists. Team USA did a lot of damage at the charity stripe, going 33-of-42 from there.
Kyrie Irving was dazzling at times, especially when it came to plays around the rim, leading Team USA with 15.
Cameron Bairstow scored 17 points and Aron Baynes 12 against China for the Aussies, who are eyeing their first Olympic medal.
Maya Moore scored 12 points and the US clinched the top seed in the group with an 81-51 win over its northern neighbors. Denver Nuggets youngster Nikola Jokic was especially impressive, as he dominated inside and out to the tune of 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting. No problem all the way until the end, when they downed Serbia by 37 points in the finale.
If the United States men’s basketball team wants to win a gold medal, if it wants to avoid the ignominy of losing for the second time in the past four Olympics with NBA players, it had better prepare to win a lot of fidgety games.
Team USA doesn’t have as many big names as they did the past two Olympics, but the talent is superior to the other countries.
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US coach Mike Krzyzewski admitted that the high-priced American talent – a team that only began playing together as a unit a few weeks ago – was still adjusting to the non-stop ball movement of global play.
