It is widely believed that Team USA will win a gold medal in the Rio Olympics, but it looks like they will have at least one fierce competitor to battle. Australia gave the star-studded American team a challenging game, and it was back-and-forth until the last half of the fourth quarter.
At the end of the game, USA went to their Olympic veteran, Carmelo Anthony. Melo answered the call, and scored 31 points, leading the team to victory at the end of the game. He also passed LeBron James as Team USA’s all-time leading scorer. Kyrie Irving was also a key piece for the Americans down the stretch, scoring 19 points total and assisting on five passes. USA struggled scoring early in the game, while Australia shot lights out, but USA eventually pulled ahead and won by a final score of 98-88.
Australia was oh-so-close to taking down the US. At the half, they were up five, and they even had a lead as big as eight points in the second half. The San Antonio Spurs Patty Mills and the Milwaukee Bucks Matthew Dellavedova gave the US all they could handle in the backcourt. Mills scored 30 points, and Delly scored 11 while also assisting on 11 passes. In the frontcourt, Andrew Bogut had a great game, scoring 15 points and making plays all over the court.
In the end, Team USA won the game. USA needs to watch out for the Aussie’s though, because before the game there were reports that they weren’t going to play 100%. If this is true, the US needs to watch their backs during the tournament, because they don’t want to be knocked out by Australia before even making it to the finals.
Via USA Today’s Sam Amick, Coach K on Australia and Team USA’s play:
Coach K: “We beat a heck of a team tonight. Australia has probably played the best of anybody in the Olympics…They play as one.”
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) August 11, 2016
Coach K:”The first two games we played, we were significantly better than those teams. This is the real world now, and that was good for us”
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) August 11, 2016
