Team USA squeaks past the spirited Argentineans in Barcelona – NBA Update
The U.S Olympic basketball team played against Argentina in an exhibition game on Sunday night, and came away with an 86-80 victory.
The two teams played in Barcelona, the scene for the 1992 Olympics where the U.S “Dream Team” was born, that went on to win the Gold medal.
In honour of the 20th anniversary of the Dream Team, the U.S team wore throwback jerseys of the 1992 gold winning team, but their performance came short of the level the Dream Team had established.
The U.S team were pushed right to the edge before they were able to run away with the victory.
"I love it. You hate to breeze through exhibition games and then you get into London, and then you start getting competitive. So we have a very good team. It doesn't matter about how many points you win by, you just want to play
well and get better that night,” said LeBron James.
Kevin Durant was the leading scorer for the Americans, scoring 27 points and showing why he is the reigning scoring champion of the NBA. Kobe Bryant added 18 points and James finished with 15 for the night.
U.S head coach Mike Krzyzewski played with a different line-up, with James, Durant, Bryant, Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler starting the game. The team got off to a good start, leading 16-1 less than 3 minutes into the game. The
Americans led by as many as 20 points in the first half, but the Argentineans came back to trail 40-45, before ending the first half down by seven points.
Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola kept the Argentineans in the game, reducing the U.S lead to 10 points in the final period. But Durant’s impeccable shooting and support from the rest of the roster helped them clinch the victory over
the South Americans.
“I think we competed, pretty much the whole game. We started bad, we've been starting bad this whole preparation. That's going to be a problem for us. We have to fix that and then they hit a lot of shots. Obviously they're capable
of hitting shots,” said forward Luis Scola.
Ginobili finished the game with 23 points; Scola had 14 points while Carlos Delfino added15 points for the night. The Argentineans had defeated the United States in the semi finals of the 2004 Olympics on their way to a gold medal.
The U.S team returned the favour in the semi finals of the 2008 Olympics.
Both teams are touted to be podium finishers this year, with the U.S anticipated to take the gold medal once again.
The Americans will now play Spain on Tuesday, a rematch from the 2008 Olympics final where the U.S team defeated the Spaniards 118-107 to take the gold. Spain, on the other hand, will be looking to break the American’s supremacy
of the game at the international stage.
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