With a 135-5 record in Olympic competition, losses are rare at the Games for the United State but Argentina can claim one of them. Too little defense. Heck, let’s watch beach volleyball. George was assigned to Argentinian point guard Facundo Campazzo after Campazzo had sparked his team’s fast start, and contained him the rest of the half.
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“We wanted to come out and our whole thing was dominating”, forward Carmelo Anthony said. Team USA defeated Team Argentina by a commanding score of 105-78 to advance out of the quarterfinals.
Argentina forward Andres Nocioni, who has played with Ginobili for much of that time, said it was also his last game and reflected on what an accomplishment it was to even get to the point of playing against the United States.
Can energy and passion really be worth 20 or so points?
In his final Olympic games, at age 39, Ginobili finished with averages of 15.0 points, 3.5 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 steals in 26.1 minutes per game.
By the end, DeMar DeRozan was practicing his 360 dunks, celebrating abounded on the US bench and the Argentine fans in the crowd were more concerned with singing a song to taunt the Brazilian fans in attendance than they were with what was happening on the court. Team USA faces Spain in the semifinals tomorrow.
The losing Argentina side were led by Luis Scola (Brooklyn Nets) with 15 points and 10 rebounds while Manu Ginobili had 12 points and 7 assists in the possible final game of his worldwide career.
No worries. The U.S. subs outscored Argentina’s bench, 54-16.
Kevin Durant starred as the US finally lived up to their status as overwhelming gold medal favourites to set up a semi-final with Spain. The team overwhelmed France 92-67 in the quarterfinals, with the Chicago Bulls’ Nikola Mirotic scoring 23 points. With three more reserves joining George and Durant in the game, Team USA went on a 27-2 run to take control. Durant scored the Americans’ first seven points to keep them in the game.
But it has never won gold at the Olympics, losing to the U.S.in the final game at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics.
“We’ve got to build on it”, Durant said, “but we’re not satisfied at all”.
The Americans trailed by as many as 10 points early but rallied to take a 56-40 halftime lead.
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Argentina battled into the Rio quarters led by four veterans from that “golden generation” squad, including four-time National Basketball Association champ Manu Ginobili of the San Antonia Spurs. By the start of the fourth, the US was up 87-61.
