Kevin Durant celebrates a basket as in front of China’s Gen Li (12) and Warriors teammate Klay Thompson in the 119-62.
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Leading the team this year is New York Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony, the most senior player in the squad. “I like them all, and it’s a great group of guys”, Angel McCoughtry of the women’s team said following its final exhibition in NY.
Forwards Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony – the only two holdovers from the 2012 London Olympics gold-medal team – led the way. Those opinions won’t change after this performance.
Unless the USA suffers some major mental lapses, plays with poor chemistry or has an extraordinarily cold night shooting jumpers, it’s hard to envision anyone threatening the Americans from going undefeated in the men’s Olympic basketball tournament.
Plenty of platitudes and praise were being handed out, but no medals: Those will be awarded on the final day of the Rio Olympics on August 21, when U.S. players are expected, as they have at 14 of 17 Summer Games, to bring home gold. But that’s past 12 years, now the team is current favourite despite several top players (like LeBron James and Stephen Curry) from National Basketball Association withdrew themselves from playing at Rio.
Team USA will look to keep the momentum going on Monday night when they take on Venezuela.
“Just because they aren’t here today, we’ve got another batch of guys that’s walking around on the streets saying they want to win a gold medal and we all have something in common”, Durant said. Only four other players – DeMar DeRozan, DeMarcus Cousins, Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving – have played global tournaments for Team USA.
DeMarcus Cousins scored 17 points for the United States team while Paul George had 15 and Kyrie Irving had 12.
Parity is at or close to an all-time high when it comes to Olympics men’s basketball heading into Rio 2016. He finished with 25 points, four rebounds, and six assists.
The U.S. shot 35.7 percent from 3-point range (10-of-28) and 51.4 percent from the field (38-of-74), while holding the Chinese to 35.7 percent from the field and 29.4 percent from beyond the arc. His game transforms into another level as an Olympian, partly because he gets better looks, to the point that he nearly looks like a new player altogether.
“I felt good, I kind of was surprised that I did”, Bogut said.
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The 514-foot ship sponsored by Cisco, will be the home for men’s and women’s teams during the summer Olympics.
