The United States national basketball team began their Olympic campaign today with an easy victory over the Chinese national team to a score of 119-62.
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Australia 87, France 66: Andrew Bogut wanted one more shot to represent Australia at the Olympics and wasn’t going to let an injury take that away again.
Saturday’s game starts a stretch of five games in eight days for the Americans before quarterfinal round play opens in just over a week.
Forwards Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony – the only two holdovers from the 2012 London Olympics gold-medal team – led the way.
The Americans were tied after one quarter, but turned up their defensive intensity, outscored Venezuela 30-8 in the second period and improved to 82-1 under coach Mike Krzyzewski.
So, is there anything that can stop the U.S. from winning in Rio?
While the star-studded roster found their rhythm to close out the game, the first few possessions were shaky for Team USA. But, we have some great players here.
United States has been powerful in Olympics basketball since 1936.
The leader of this team, Anthony, who is going for his third gold medal, is one of the all-time great Olympic players, and his command of worldwide game was on display. He has (239) points in his Olympic career and trails Michael Jordan (256), David Robinson (270) and LeBron James (273) on the all-time list.
Paul George scored 20 and Jimmy Butler 17 – a lot of them coming in extended garbage time – in the first Olympic matchup between the nations. The other Americans were 5-for-19.
The last time the China and the U.S. clashed on the Olympic stage was 2008 in Beijing in an intriguing matchup played in front of a standing room only crowd that included U.S. President George W. Bush and an estimated one billion television viewers.
The Chinese and American Olympic basketball teams fought in two previous exhibition games. In their exhibition match against China, the US scored 34 fast break points to China’s 13.
Now the teams can drop anchor and stick around in one spot – they’re staying on a cruise ship along one of Brazil’s handsome beaches.
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It was a festive atmosphere at Carioca 1 Arena Saturday night. “We’re older and more talented and we played really hard and shared the ball”. They’re on a ship again, along with the US women’s team, in part because of a shortage of hotel space compared to recent hosts Beijing and London, and Anthony doesn’t see why it’s such a big deal.
