The U.S. also will face China to open play in the Olympics on August 6 and in another exhibition Tuesday in Oakland.
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The only area the US will need to improve upon from Sunday’s performance is its point guard play.
Jordan scored 12 points and led a strong defensive effort with three blocks for the Americans, who held the Chinese to 30.9 per cent shooting. There are only a few teams in the world that can come even close to supplying the talent to keep up with the USA, and China is not of them.
Once more, Kevin Durant led a high-octane Team U.S. offense with 19 points and five assists. KD was the leading scorer for the second straight friendly exhibition this weekend, after pacing the US with 23 points in nearly 21 minutes on Friday against Argentina. The former Oklahoma City Thunder forward tallied 19 points and led all players from both sides in scoring.
On his first shot, Thompson hit a 25-foot jump shot for a 3-point basket. Durant was 5-of-7 from the field and 4-of-5 from downtown while Thompson was 6-of-10 from the field and 4-of-8 from deep.
There weren’t any opening night jitters, though the USA shot only 45 percent and missed all but 14 of 41 3-pointers.
“We’ve only been together a week, but it seems like we’ve been teammates for years”, Jordan said. It nearly seems unfair to pair the two against global competition, but that’s for the rest of the world to figure out. Anthony finished five points with eight rebounds and five assists, a 2-of-9 performance from the perimeter.
Kevin Durant is the adopted Splash Brother now. “Every team is different, every game presents different challenges”, Green said.
It’s time for the stars of the National Basketball Association to be like the Wu-Tang Clan and form like Voltron, forgetting their team rivalries to unite under the uniform of Team USA. Even though it’s only an exhibition series happening right now, the USA has showed why they are more powerful than everyone else.
A game that was over nearly before it began showed the USA has to improve its shooting and conditioning.
For information on the USA National Team’s Olympic schedule, visit their official website. China did force one more turnover (13) than Argentina was able to force on Friday, so it worked a little bit. Yi [Jianlian] is an outstanding player, but the other guy.
The other element, other than playing in a potentially unsafe country that’s struggled with multiple health crises of late, may be unfamiliarity with their opponents, unlike a seven-game NBA Finals series when it’s the same players playing against each other each night. His teammate Bogdan Bogdanovic is a deadly outside shooter, and shot 57.8 percent from the floor and an absurd 55.6 percent from three-point range. The USA look like they are going to put up a big number on all of the teams they go up against this summer. Zhao Jiwei added 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting.
“We got better today”.
Someone shut that window!
Good thing he didn’t hear them.
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It wasn’t until after the game that Durant realized those few moments together were just the first of many.
