“We kind of knew they were going to slow the game up”, said Anthony who scored 14 points and now has 262 in his Olympic career.
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It was similar to the meeting between the teams in Chicago on July 29, when the USA shot poorly and still won by 35 on their pre-Rio exhibition tour. [So] we settled down and made our adjustments to the way that they was calling the game, to the way that Venezuela wanted to play.
Then the gong finally went off. Durant made two free throws to give the U.S. a six-point lead – its biggest of the game at that point – then Anthony stuck a three, and the United States never looked back.
Jordan’s first Olympics experience took place while he was at North Carolina in 1984, and he later led the way for the 1992 Dream Team while with the Chicago Bulls.
Team USA MBB is back in action Monday evening, as they take on Venezuela at 5:00 p.m. CT, on NBC Sports.
But there was no panic from the USA who eventually showed their class while extending their Games’ winning streak to 19-0, a run of domination that dates back to the bronze medal game of the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Aussies, featuring five National Basketball Association players, four of them league champions, improved to 2-0 on Monday with an impressive 95-80 win over Serbia. “We try not to give them a chance to run because when they run they kill”.
Anthony, the four-team Olympian and two-time gold medalist playing in his record 25th game for the United States, provided a much-needed spark in the second quarter. Anthony followed Irving up the floor, accepted a feed on the wing and knocked down a 3-pointer that lifted some of the pressure – and fog – off Team USA.
DeAndre Jordan had 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting and grabbed 11 rebounds while Paul George had 20 points. “They held it to the end of the shot clock every time, made us defend the whole shot clock”, Anthony said. “Most of their main players play in our league (the National Basketball Association) but we’ll prepare for them tomorrow and see what we got”.
The shot-making of John Cox – cousin of Kobe Bryant – is the backbone of this team, which had to make you smile if you were still watching late in the third quarter.
Although this may not be the best made-in-America team as James, Stephen Curry and others chose to skip the Rio Games, the USA squad that came to Brazil appears to be in a class by itself. They’ve won both games by an average of 50.5 points.
Venezuela, which doesn’t have an National Basketball Association player on its roster, didn’t figure to be a threat but the FIBA Americas champion wasn’t intimidated by the USA roster of household names.
Venezuela slowed the pace, made the US work on defense and trailed the mighty Americans by two points early in the second quarter.
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They have a lot of everything.
