The United States men’s basketball team was expected to make the Olympic gold medal game, but the same can’t be said for its opponent. Spain will still get to play on the final day of this summer’s tournament, doing so in Sunday’s bronze medal game.
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“We’ve got to be serious and really get this because it is going to be a different game this Saturday”, said forward Angel McCoughtry.
The U.S. advanced to its third straight gold-medal game win an 82-76 victory Friday, another tight matchup between the teams that met in the last two championship games.
It has become customary, and perhaps tiresome, to ask American players if they would rather win an National Basketball Association title or Olympic gold medal. Serbia made the final after upsetting Australia 87-61 on Friday in the second semifinal game.
Coach Geno Auriemma said the decision is up to Bird whether she plays.
The Americans pulled away to win 118-107 in 2008 and held on for a 107-100 victory in London, but the defenses made their mark in this one.
As of publishing, the U.S.is now facing Spain and Australia will battle Serbia in today.
It certainly wasn’t pretty, but Olympic gold never loses its luster. DeAndre Jordan, the center from the Los Angeles Clippers, came through with pivotal two-way contributions for the Americans, especially in the second half. “We don’t want to leave with nothing less than a gold medal”. All they had to do was get by Serbia in their semifinal round.
It’s a young US team with precious little Olympic experience and less glitz than past editions that included LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade among other superstars. With Jordan in the middle, though, the US won the battle of the paint, 36-32.
Spain’s Pau Gasol played with a right calf injury, scored 12 points in the first quarter, and finished with a game-high 23.
“Their athleticism, their size, they made our offense get hard on most possessions”, he said.
But as Gasol answered his final question and began the long, slow walk down the hallway toward Spain’s gloomy locker room, there was a better-than-even chance he was wondering where he’d find the strength after Sunday to climb back onto the global stage again.
Its roster is chock full of current and former National Basketball Association players, starting with star center Pau Gasol, point guard Ricky Rubio and power forward Nikola Mirotic. The Aussies were shooting at just 13 per cent success from the field (2/15) while Serbia were at 53 per cent (8/15 with 14 shots inside the key) and had picked up 15 rebounds.
The Americans? They’re right back where everyone thought they’d be. Serbia and France both surpassed 90 points against them and Australia scored 88, as the team with 10 Olympic newcomers took longer than hoped in grasping worldwide offenses.
24 Consecutive games won by Team USA in the Olympics. But the Spanish, as they had in the previous two Olympics, found their stride just in time to run into the Americans.
Spain were down by 45-39 in the first half with a big help from the bench, which contributed 32 points compared to the 17 from the U.S.
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Serbia was ready for the stage – it played its best game of the Olympics. U.S. led 26-17 after the first quarter as they grabbed six offensive rebounds in the quarter, compared to Spain’s one. “We’ve got the 2012 Olympic gold medalist from Cuba, great fighter”. “You want to have that feeling”.
