– Argentinians were waving flags and screaming.
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Tony Parker of France and Manu Ginobili of Argentina have played their last game in worldwide basketball.Both members of the San Antonio Spurs.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The U.S. men’s basketball team powered into the semifinals of the Olympics, beating Argentina 105-78 on Wednesday night.
And then the USA tried something novel: playing defense.
On Friday, Aug. 19, the United States will go up against Spain in the semifinals.
Argentina led 19-9 in the first quarter, but Kevin Durant hit a pair of threes and George scored inside to cut the lead to two.
Asked about the defense of Butler and George, Timberwolves coach and US assistant Tom Thibodeau said: “And Kyle”. “We couldn’t really get 100 percent prepared and it showed”.
Second-ranked Spain made a poor start to the tournament with losses to Brazil and Croatia before shifting into top gear with four straight wins, including a 92-67 victory over old foes France on Wednesday to ease into the last four. “We’re going to try and play our best basketball possible, no matter who we play”, Ginobili said. “Our energy for the game”.
But they were back at their dominating and lethal best against Argentina, extending their Olympic winning streak to 23 games. No ball movement, quick shots, poor defense.
“We had a distracting situation during our training camp and many players missed many, many practices”, Spain coach Sergio Scariolo said.
“I just didn’t care about the outcome of the game”, Durant said. They can spread you out. The game plan was solid: space the floor, drive to the basket and kick the ball to Kevin Durant, who made seven threes.
France’s Tony Parker, who scored a team-high 14 points, announced that he was retiring from global competition after the game ended. “It’s just basketball. I don’t think you can overthink that”. We went over a lot. And now, I’m nearly 40, so now of course, a lot of things happened. He grew up in a poor neighborhood in Baltimore.
They’ll never meet again in the Olympics. A lawyer for the two athletes said they will not be allowed to leave Brazil until they provide testimony to investigators. To open that up, I felt like I was one of theirs.
That third-place finish matched the Americans’ worst at the Olympics, one of only three times in their 17 appearances they didn’t win gold. After defeating Team USA in the semifinals of those Olympic games, Argentina closed out its gold medal campaign with an 84-69 victory over Italy. In Rio, he’ll face Spain for the right to play for a gold.
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“I don’t want to say the team was different; the magnitude of what was at stake was a lot higher”, Kyrie Irving said. They (have) National Basketball Association experience and they know how to play these games.
