In Durant’s first appearance at Oracle Arena since his decision to sign with the Warriors, he scored the first 10 points of the game for his team, finishing with 13.
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Anthony finished with nine points and made history by becoming the first US male to play basketball in four Olympics.
The USA Basketball men’s national team will play China for the third time in just a few weeks.
Anthony also played in his 24th Olympic game, tying the American record held by both LeBron and David Robinson. But for now, this is exactly the kind of lopsided performance everyone expected out of them.
Whether it’s explosive offense or suffocating defense, it seems like there’s multiple ways that Team USA can overpower their opponent. “Even they find 12 more, 12 more and 12 more, they still have much for us to learn”, he added.
China shot 36% from the field and 29% on three-pointers.
We’ll have you covered with live updates and scores throughout the game, so be sure to keep it right here at NESN.com throughout the night for all of your USA Basketball needs.
Kevin Durant gave US the offensive boost they needed after a slow start, hitting 10 of his 14 field-goal attempts to finish with 25 points. She also became just the 11th USA player to reach that number of appearances.
Venezuela also plays again on Wednesday as they’ll look for their first win still in a matchup with China.
Team USA got off to a rousing start in the Olympics with an easy 119-62 victory, which is pretty much exactly the opposite of how it shot the ball immediately after tipoff against China on Saturday. It was a big team win, the bench scored 54 points, including eight from Jimmy Butler. After unveiling their team in NY in late June, the men reported three weeks later to training camp in Las Vegas and also played exhibition games in Los Angeles, Oakland and Chicago.
The Americans improved to 6-0 against China in Olympic play and 3-0 since assembling last month, having won two lopsided exhibitions last month in California against the Asian champions.
“We never get bored with the process”, Durant said.
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But the new Dallas Maverick looked fully recovered, scoring 18 points on 9 for 10 shooting in Australia’s 87-66 win over France on Saturday.
