While he came off the bench after starting against Argentina, he still played 16 minutes, which as many as Sunday’s starting point guard Kyle Lowry.
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Coach K pointed to this after the USA won 106-57: “We should have won, but the way we won was excellent”. “We’re really growing together as a group”. “The USA has been at the top of the competition for 20 years and there is a lot we can take away”.
Whatever the case, it clearly didn’t affect Durant, as he finished with a team-high 19 points in the rout.
Exhibition play continues in Chicago against Venezuela, and a reunion with old Maryland nemesis Greivis Vasquez. The 101-70 loss to Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Olympics was the most favorable result in the history of Chinese basketball against the Americans. After a shot clock violation in which Jordan had a chance to catch the desperate attempt to get the ball to the rim, the big man’s hands weren’t quite good enough to corral that disgusting FIBA basketball. Krzyzewski believes the Americans will excel at defensive switching because of an abundance of versatile players.
Klay Thompson added 17 points, DeMar DeRozan had 13 and DeMarcus Cousins scored 12 and grabbed seven rebounds in another dominating performance for the Americans, this time in the city of Los Angeles. The United States cruised to a 111-74 win over Argentina in its first of five exhibition games before heading to the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Rio next month. Anthony filled the box score with eight rebounds and five assists, but shot 2-of-9 from the field en route to five points. “There have been challenging points in each game and a huge thing is for us just to get to know one another but also how the game is called, the rules, the ball”. The team has a former National Basketball Association player in Yi Jianlian and two 2016 National Basketball Association draft picks in Zhou Qi and Wang Zhelin, but that’s not enough when you’re facing a team with Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins and other All-Stars.
Jordan began the game with a thunderous block on China’s Wang Zhelin, then raced down the court to slam home an alley-oop, that got his home crowd out of its seats early.
For Durant the game was a chance to play with a pair of his new Golden State teammates, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.
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Though at times little defense was played, there was plenty of offense to keep the crowd at the new T-Mobile Arena happy. Next up is China at the Staples Center Sunday, followed by a rematch 48-hours later at Oracle Areana in Oakland.
