That gold medal opportunity will come Sunday against the victor of Friday’s late game between Australia and Serbia, each of which provided the US with a competitive contest earlier in the tournament. Pau Gasol, who was questionable for the game with injury, indeed played and led Spain with 23 points, but it wasn’t enough in the end, as the USA dominated the glass and held Spain under 40% shooting.
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Serbia’s Miroslav Raduljica (13) tries to work the ball around Australia’s Andrew Bogut (6) during a men’s semifinal round basketball game at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 19, 2016. Hopefully they won’t have a fatigue issue compared to other teams that didn’t have 4/5ths of their starting lineup playing in Rio.
“We always were on their tail”.
They played superb ones in 2008 and 2012, but not good enough. In fact, the last time Team USA got stunned in an Olympic Game was on Friday, August 27, 2004 in Athens, Greece.
Stefan Markovic scored 14, Nikola Jokic had 11 rebounds and the Serbs, a squad with a mixture of moxie and muscle, earned another crack at the US on Sunday.
“We’ve always felt Spain, they’d have a gold-medal chance, and why wouldn’t we think that?”
Before the United States Men’s National Team’s quarterfinal game against Argentina on Wednesday, head coach Mike Krzyzewski chose to make a lineup change, starting DeAndre Jordan at center in place of DeMarcus Cousins.
To get by Spain again, the U.S. Olympic team would have to win ugly, so unusual it’s practically un-American.
I mean, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson are two of the best players in the National Basketball Association.
Now 69 and coming off knee, hernia and ankle surgeries this spring, Krzyzewski might show he still has some hops if the Americans win more gold.
“You want to get there”, two-time gold medalist Carmelo Anthony said. They sent Japan packing with a score of 110-64 in the quarterfinals and bounced France back home in the Semis, 86-67. I don’t know what was going on, but their head coach (Sergio Scariolo) was really insane over there in the beginning and one of their guys got a technical from the bench. “Sometimes it’s the pressure, sometimes it’s whatever it is, but we click again”.
The bronze medal game features Spain and Australia. But they’ll now have to beat Spain for their first top-three finish. So the Spanish arrived in Brazil a little more disjointed than precise, but that’s over with now.
“Unbelievable”, said forward Nikola Kalinic. “I thought our guys did that a little bit more than they did, and that’s why we won”. But whatever those specifics, and however it looked, this group is at the point in this event where neither star players nor style points matter much.
Is the real “Dream Team” the women’s basketball squad?
“I never said they were too old”. Other people are making comments. They are here to win.
It wasn’t pretty, but Olympic gold never loses its luster.
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The Americans have turned them away twice. “But we didn’t. They took advantage of their strength”. It was a close game in the first half as Team USA only led 48-46 with 1:30 to go, but from then on it outscored Japan 62-18.
