It will be interesting to see how the Americans react to Wednesday’s game going into their matchup with Serbia on Friday. Both players were often matched up against each other throughout the night.
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The U.S. scored the final five points in the last 27 seconds on free throws, with Irving hitting the first three.
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 worldwide career.
Despite playing a close game against Australia on Wednesday, Team USA isn’t expected to have much trouble winning the gold.
Having overcome China and Venezuela without breaking a sweat, the usa were made to work until the very end as they were pushed all the way by the Boomers. “It’s good that they had it early”. They’ve played three really tough opponents and they just play lights-out basketball. Australia has five [NBA] pros. They play as one. The calls. The flopping. That’s the first real, real global game that we’ve played. You need that experience. “And down the line they’re going to benefit from that”. Theirs happened in pool play. I think it helps us moving forward, I think it is a great challenge. Anthony made 9 of 15 3-point attempts, and he grabbed eight rebounds in the win.
Australia, whose core group has been together for almost a decade, gave the USA a battle deep into the fourth quarter on Wednesday, before the Americans were able to pull away for a 98-88 victory.
Asked if the game was a United States of America wake-up call, U.S. guard Paul George said: “It definitely got real”. “There was no thought of defeat”. But in saying that, we’re not saying, ‘Oh, we’re invincible.’.
In my last article I said that Australia would provide Team USA with their toughest competition in pool play, but I did not think that Australia would push the US until the final minutes. But Serbian center Miroslav Raduljica has played in the league, and guard Bogdan Bogdanovic’s rights were recently acquired by the Sacramento Kings in a draft-day trade with Phoenix.
Bogut finished with 15 points for the Australians, who have never won a medal but four of their players own National Basketball Association rings. They will likely top the group, meaning they’ll play the fourth-place finisher from Group B. Quarter-final action takes place on 17 August, with the semi-finals following on 19 August and the medal games on 21 August.
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FitzGibbon reported it initially looked it could be a long night for the Boomers as Team USA came out flying, hitting back-to-back three pointers to open the scoring and dominating the boards.
