He led all scorers with 31 points, including a bunch of huge three-pointers, and set a big Olympic record in the process.
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Kyrie Irving, who Australians like to claim as their own as he was born in Melbourne, was the second-best player for the US with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting, including a dagger from three down the stretch, similar to Game 7 against the Golden State Warriors. They played tourist at the Christ the Redeemer statue, and went on a field trip to watch Michael Phelps win yet another gold medal.
This was supposed to be another romp in the park for the collection of National Basketball Association stars that is the U.S. Olympic team. Can we play better?
That included the bookies in Las Vegas, who installed the US team as a 27.5 point favorite after two laughers to open the tournament.
The three-time All-Star was awarded a technical foul not three minutes into the game after he took exception to the physical defense of Matthew Dellavedova-who’s held a reputation as one of the NBA’s “dirty” players for a while now-and shoved the ball into the former Cleveland Cavaliers point guard’s chest. “That’ll help us going forward”. You’ll able to stream the game through the NBC Olympics site here, too.
In other Group A play, four-time National Basketball Association champion Tony Parker hit a game-winning jumper with 31 seconds remaining to give France a 76-75 victory over stubborn Serbia.
In a match-up between two undefeated teams, Australia led by five points at half-time and pushed U.S. all the way, trailing by as few as five points with 1:20 remaining before the gold medal favourites pulled away. Anthony now has 262 total points, which is six more than Jordan’s 256 points. “He’s the reason we won tonight”.
In the second quarter of the game, after 4:20 of play, the scores stood at 55 – 27 points.
The U.S. wouldn’t have been eliminated had it somehow lost, but there is a certain pride factor when it comes to U.S. Olympic basketball teams.
The Americans improved to 3-0 in Rio and 83-1 under coach Mike Krzyzewski, who took over not long after the last USA loss at the Olympics, a 2004 semifinals defeat to Argentina that still stings. He took a charge with 38.4 seconds remaining and Venezuela holding a one-point lead. Other national teams, including Australia, have had core players together for years. Afterward, nearly everyone connected to the USA program tried to take a positive out of it, saying a close game will prove good for the team as it chases the gold.
“This is the real world now”, Krzyzewski said. “We knew that coming in-this team has a knack for being a little dirty”.
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It was good for Australia, too, though the Boomers had to wonder if anyone can beat the USA after just falling short in their best effort.
