Kevin Durant scored a team-high 25 points and Team USA cruised past China 119-62 in its Olympics men’s basketball opening game on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro.
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The new Golden State Warriors star scored 30 points four years ago in the gold-medal game, when the Americans held off Spain.
“The Olympics are different, they’re big, for 10 of the guys it is their first Olympics, it’s different, it’s new”.
“We wanted to send a message to the rest of the world that we mean business”.
LeBron James and Chris Paul passed on searching for more gold with Durant and Anthony, and plenty more top players who would have been on this roster also declined. USA women’s tennis coach Mary Joe Fernandez said Williams was sick before arriving in Brazil and added that Williams still hoped to play doubles today with younger sister Serena.
“Just because they aren’t here today, we’ve got another batch of guys that’s walking around on the streets saying they want to win a gold medal, and we all have something in common”, Durant said.
U.S. are favourites to win a third-straight gold, and Anthony said it was an early chance to showcase their abilities.
Though the parity in the worldwide game has increased, the United States women are still the favorite as they come to Rio 2016 for the Olympics women’s basketball competition and by a wide margin.
The heavily-favored Americans weren’t really challenged, and had beaten China twice, handedly, in exhibition play.
With Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony the lone returning Olympians, the USA suited up ten Olympic neophytes, most notably Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. They had 31 assists on their 38 baskets.
Thompson finished with just two points on 1-of-6 shooting.
Butler’s eight points came with six rebounds, four assists and a steal.
The former Oklahoma City forward, who joins Golden State next season, added a game-high 6 assists for the Americans, who set an all-time U.S. record of 33 free throws made.
Bogut, who was traded to the Dallas Mavericks last month, shot 9 for 10 from the field.
More recently, the two teams met in a pair of exhibition games in the run in to Rio with Team USA winning by 50 and 49 points.
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Spurs star guard Tony Parker led France with 18 points, but almost all of that came in a late first-half spurt as the 4-time National Basketball Association champ sought in vain to keep his team in the game.
