Australia, boasting several National Basketball Association players of its own, was expected to give the us men a tougher test Wednesday, but few anticipated the nail-biter that unfolded.
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United States of America coach Mike Krzyzewski called Australia a “heck of a team” and said there will be no easy games left for his team at Rio 2016 after their first two blowout wins against China and Venezuela. He became the all-time leading scorer for the U.S.in Olympic history, boosting his total to 293 points over four Games. The Olympics are underway.
U.S. are the overwhelming favourites to win the men’s Olympic basketball event.
Australia may have two heartbreaking losses in the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympics in cycling and basketball, but the 10-point lead in the Boomers’ game versus Team USA caused a Twitter meltdown on Wednesday night.
He’s the leader on this team and we have a leader like that that’s going to leave it all on the floor, no matter what possession is going on throughout the game.
But Anthony, the first US man to play in four Olympics, steadied the Americans.
But it was far from a flawless first quarter for Team USA, which ended up tied with Australia at 29 only after recovering from a 25-17 deficit.
Patty Mills, who led Australia with 30 points, could only admire Anthony.
This night that looked for a while to be nothing more than a novelty – the New York Knicks star passing LeBron James as the all-time American leading scorer in American Olympics history en route to an expected win – eventually became one of Anthony’s most memorable performances in his decorated global career.
Team USA’s next preliminary round test comes August 12 at 3 p.m. PT against Serbia before its final preliminary round game August 14 against France. They grew up with rugby or Australian-rules football, and so they bring a real physicality to everything they do on the court.
“It got real”, Paul George said.
They have won two of their three games after previously beating France and Serbia.
“They’re the best team in the world, we battled them and we thought we should’ve been in a position to try and grind out a closer game”.
The end result was another blowout victory, but the Americans couldn’t put it on cruise control like they had in their first two wins. He took a charge with 38.4 seconds remaining and Venezuela holding a one-point lead.
They used a 15-3 burst to make it 46-39, and Krzyzewski actually needed a timeout to calm his team that by then can usually make its postgame plans.
Irving once considered playing for Australia, where he was born while his father was playing there professionally.
Before the game, one of the interesting storylines was that the game pitted former Cleveland Cavalier teammates Kyrie Irving and Matthew Dellavedova.
The Aussies hit hard and the Americans hit back, with George getting a technical foul for a shot at Dellavedova.
Moving on: The U.S. women’s field hockey team advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating Japan 6-1.
They’ve said it won’t come easily.
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While their performance was praised in the media, Bogut insisted there was little to celebrate as they had still lost the game.
