RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Red, white and blase for one quarter, the U.S. Olympic team woke up and won easily.
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Carmelo Anthony reacts after a shot against Venezuela in the men’s preliminary round group A game 19 on day three of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Carioca Arena 1 on August 8, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
In the second quarter, Anthony surpassed Michael Jordan for third on the Olympic All Time scoring list, with 258 points scored in his Olympic career. Anthony finished with 14, passing Jordan’s total of 256 points late in the first half.
The Americans were tied at 18-all after one quarter, but stopped turning the ball over and fouling, unleashed their defense and outscored Venezuela 30-8 in the second period.
“I think we wore them down as the game went along”, Krzyzewski said.
It was similar to the meeting between the teams in Chicago on July 29, when the US shot poorly and still won by 35 on their pre-Rio exhibition tour.
In reality, a team that has now won 43 consecutive games at the Olympics – that hasn’t lost since 1992 – needs to worry little about its opponents. “We knew that they didn’t want to play an up-tempo style game”. Australia, on the other hand, might actually make Team USA sweat if the US squad plays like they did through the first 15 minutes on Monday.
With much more great entertainment still to come in the Rio Olympics, this is only the start of the men’s basketball tournament and the Olympics in general.
Kryzewski wound up sitting, too, during much of the second half of the Americans’ 113-69 victory over Venezuela in pool play at the Rio Olympics. After Gregory Echenique (18 points) scored for Venezuela at 7:31 of the second quarter, the lead for Team USA, favored by 50, was just 24-22.
The Knick star moved past Michael Jordan on the USA scoring list, and now trails only LeBron James and David Robinson.
Paul George scored a team-high 20 points for Team USA, followed by Jimmy Butler (17) Durant (16), Anthony (14) and DeAndre Jordan (14).
Staying on a 196-cabin luxury cruise shot anchored off Rio’s coast, the US team has settled in following a few choppy early days in Brazil.
But even after watching the US score 95 points against his team over the last three quarters, Garcia wouldn’t go so far as to say the Americans were invincible.
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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. “They make you play defense, and then we fouled a lot as a result of that, because you have to play it longer”, USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said. The contest was a rematch of the 2014 World Championship gold-medal game that the Americans won by 13.
