RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Geno Auriemma could only smile after his US women’s basketball team dominated another opponent.
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The Americans will have a two full day rest away from the Olympic Park before the knockout portion of the tournament begins on Wednesday.
Winning, period, is the sole aim now. Even without the likes of LeBron James and Steph Curry, most everyone expected America to dominate, but instead they have had to scratch and claw three out of their five wins. Despite their critics, Team USA completed the preliminary rounds with a 5-0 record. While the men’s team have also managed to go through group play at a ideal 5-0, there has been plenty of deserved criticism against them so far.
Thompson ended an Olympic-long slump with seven 3-pointers and 30 points, and the Americans needed nearly all of them to hold off France 100-97 on Sunday.
Thompson finally had the three-point shooting eruption that everyone was expecting and reminded everyone that he was one of the Americans’ best players at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
Give the Americans that much. “They are struggling but they are winning”.
The USA men remain a team rivals would rather avoid facing too soon, but any aura of invincibility based on history or absent stars like LeBron James is gone. They’re still the favorite. “They haven’t been dominating, but they haven’t lost, either. They’re still unbeaten, so we can’t say that they’re struggling”. But the fact that we’re getting better offensively is a huge plus, because I think we can make proper adjustments defensively to get better. Both teams feature young talent primed to step into the spotlight in future worldwide tournaments, but seemingly not quite ready to take the reins in 2016.
With an overall record of 63-3, Olympic losses are rare for the US, but Japan can claim one of them, although it occurred 40 years ago at the 1976 Montreal Games. Kevin Durant continues to lead the team in scoring with 16.8 points and he’s by far been the best shooter on the floor, nailing 11 of his 18 three-point attempts and 60 percent of his total field goals.
Coach K and his staff made one change to the starting lineup, opting to go with Klay Thompson in place of Paul George. It takes almost two minutes for Team USA to score their first points of the fourth quarter, via two free throws from Kyrie Irving, off an Antoine Diot foul. Comparing these Yanks to this generation of French players – who’ve largely been a unit for six years, as wily coach Vincent Collet pointed – is harsher still.
The U.S. won its 50th straight tournament game, but the last three have been nothing like most of the previous 47. Klay Thompson carried the team for much of the third quarter, and without Thompson’s performance, France may have been victorious.
Durant: We’re going to have to grind it out. “We just have to trust ourselves on both sides of the ball, and if we do that and play hard, I don’t think we’ll lose”. We’ve been in those games down 15 and have to find a way to come back. George spoke of squandering “that moment when we looked like we were gonna steamroll ’em”.
These close games for the United States of America against some of the best national teams in the world might just be the norm for the remainder of the men’s Olympic basketball competition.
With Parker surely back at the controls. He can stun an opponent with paralyzing crossovers and stepbacks, but sometimes you wish he would color just a bit outside his own lines and bring others into his world.
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Durant: We played a little better on the offensive end, but for the most part, we’ve still got to do a better job on covering each other on the defensive end. “Just a succinct comment in that regard”.
