Carmelo Anthony has taken over the lead as the all-time leading scorer for Team USA in Olympic play with his scoring effort Wednesday night against Australia.
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Irving added 19 points and five assists, coming up big in the fourth quarter as well.
Carmelo Anthony scored 31 points and helped bring Team USA to victory in a tight matchup against the Aussies.
A USA team that had won its first two games without breaking a sweat trailed early in the fourth quarter before Anthony hit a flurry of 3-pointers to put the Americans on top.
Unbeaten since the bronze medal game of the 2004 Athens Summer Games, the United States was on the brink of a rare loss until a fourth quarter rally.
Playing in his fourth Olympics for Team USA, Anthony first saw action as an National Basketball Association rookie fresh out of Syracuse University during the 2004 Olympics in Greece, where the US would have to settle for the bronze medal.
Anthony has scored 293 total points in the Olympics, putting him ahead of luminaries like LeBron James, Michael Jordan and David Robinson.
Team USA is set to play Serbia on Friday and France on Sunday before the men’s quarterfinals begin next week. Irving and Anthony scored 23 of the 28 4th quarter points for Team USA. The former Villanova Wildcats guard was a little shaky from the field, shooting 2-of-6, but scored seven points and was 3-of-3 from the free throw line.
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Anthony might not have reached the mountaintop in the National Basketball Association, but he’s going down as the best Olympic player in Team USA history.
