The United States’ team poses with their gold medals for men’s basketball at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016.
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“I’m just proud of the fact that Jerry Colangelo when he took over, he gave me an opportunity”, said Krzyzewski, who modestly deflected any credit for his success and instead praised veterans like team captain Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant.
“All the B.S., everything we went through, everybody kind of went through their own type of adversity”. How quickly they’ve come together, how much they’ve been able to accomplish in less than a month that we’ve been together.
A win by the Serbs here would have been flatly weird, like the moment after the bronze medal game Sunday when someone handed Pau Gasol a Bulls jersey to sign, a Michael Jordan Bulls jersey to sign.
Anthony, who joins Gennady Volnov and Sergey Belov of the Soviet Union as the lone men’s basketball players to win four Olympic medals, earned his first back in 2004, when the US lost three times and stumbled to a bronze that prompted a wholesale overhaul of the program under Colangelo. The bench was terrific. Team USA is on a 76 game winning streak.
In addition to presenting sponsor Dow, five USOC sponsors – Coca-Cola, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Kellogg’s, Samsung and USG – are associate sponsors of the Team USA Awards program. “I told them they’re not going anywhere”. Terry Collins has felt more love lately.
The U.S. had no one from the Denver Nuggets, just one indication of how serious the Americans were about winning this thing.
Anthony checked back into the rout in the final minutes so he could grab a seventh rebound, passing David Robinson for the USA record with the 125th in his Olympic career.
Saving their best for last in a tournament that had been tough, the United States convincingly won its third consecutive gold medal, beating Serbia 96-66 on Sunday. He ruled out returning for Tokyo 2020.
So all that concern and search for blame was useless.
No American team has been deeper with Catchings as its 12th player. This year’s Olympic squad included only one All-NBA first team choice (DeAndre Jordan), down from the complete set who made the trip to Barcelona.
The 46 National Basketball Association players in these Olympics was an all-time high.
Other NBA stars declined invitations to play in the Olympics, notably LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Anthony Davis. Congrats to him on a wonderful Olympic career. Kevin Durant, the guy with the height of a center and the skills of a guard, was the difference-maker in Sunday’s Olympic gold medal game against Serbia.
Serbia outscored the Americans 23-17 in the fourth quarter, but it was nowhere near enough to alter the final result. The U.S. especially cranked up their defense; opponents averaged 92 points against the U.S.in their last three pool play games, until the Americans clamped down defensively to allow just 73 points per game in medal play.
Unlike their semifinal win over France when the Americans looked discombobulated for a half, the US was more fluid offensively.
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In capsule form, that is Paul George’s story. Irving reversed to Thompson, who passed to Durant. Yet the consensus of those watching the entire tournament was that George was the team’s second-best player behind Durant. During that game, Team Serbia missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have sent the game to overtime.
