Team USA celebrates during halftime
Kobe Bryant showed why he was MVP last season as he dominates Australia in a stunning victory of 116-85, advancing to the semifinals.
The first quarter started out rough for both teams. After Carmelo’s first jump shot, both teams kept missing their shots and lay-ups until Dwight made a 3-point play after getting fouled by Andrew Bogut. Australia was trailing 6-15 before both Patrick Mills and David Barlow made a three-pointer and then a lay-up from Chris Anstey. This brought the Aussies up to 12-15 with an 8-0 run. The quarter ended extremely close with Team USA ahead by only one point [25-24].
Second quarter remained fairly close as well. Kobe still couldn’t find his shot as he missed two three-pointers. Nevertheless, he still managed to score several lay-ups and jump shots against Australia. One thing I noticed was that the U.S. were missing several free throws. As I mentioned in my articles earlier, their missed foul shots could be costly in tight situations.
Halftime started with 55-43, Team USA leading by 12 points.
D-Wade sparked the major run in the third quarter
Third quarter proved to be the USA’s quarter. They outscored the Aussies by 28 at the end of the third after a 14-0 run at the beginning. D-Wade created his usual 3-point play by drawing the foul after the lay-up. Kobe made both his threes while USA was still suffering from foul shooting. Bosh, James, Bryant, and Prince all missed a foul shot in the quarter. Like I said, they need to work on their foul shots so they don’t miss them at crucial moments of the game.
Like usual, Team USA pretty much coasted through the fourth quarter. They held a significant lead as Coach K brought in the reserves. Boozer and Redd found playing time as they both combined for 9 points. I always wish that Michael Redd could see more playing time. He’s such a great shooter on the outside. It’s unfortunate for any shooting guard who’s looking for playing time with Kobe Bryant on the roster.
Kobe scored 25 points against Australia
Speaking of the Dobermamba (his new nickname in the Beijing Olympics), he had his best game yet in Beijing scoring 25 points with 5 rebounds. His defense always speaks loud, but his offense did as well today. LeBron James had 16 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and 4 steals. LeBron has such great defense as well, you will notice that his numbers in steals are rather high.
The game ended in a 31-point blow out by Team USA. As mentioned above, the team was 58.1% in free throw shooting [18-31]. That is extremely poor foul shooting in my opinion. They cannot be missing almost half of their attempts. They need to make those easy baskets to record more points. Obviously they didn’t need to worry about more points by the end of the third. But in the next games, it might come back to haunt them. But nonetheless, Team USA escaped from that and used their dominating offensive scoring ability to stretch their lead.
They are making their claim for the gold and heading right to it. They will play either Argentina or Greece on Friday. The winner will advance to the finals where they will battle it out for the gold. I personally hope they draw Greece since they handled them pretty well in the preliminaries. Anyway, the gold will not come easy for Team USA. Or will it? They will just have to continue to play their game and hopefully win their next two games.
