Rio de Janeiro: With the United States in danger of losing for the first time since 2006, NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Kyrie Irving took command on Wednesday to subdue stubborn Australia at the Rio Olympics.
The Americans outlasted the upset-minded Aussies 98-88 as Anthony scored a game-high 31 points, 14 of them in the fourth quarter, and Irving sank 12 of his 19 in the last period.
“At the end of the day I was in my zone,” Anthony said. “My teammates found me when I was open.”
The Knicks star is seeking to become the first three-time gold winner in men’s Olympic basketball. His 31 points leave him as the all-time USA scorer at the Games with 293 points, surpassing LeBron James.
San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills helped keep Australia in the preliminary-round game with 30 points.
The Americans improved to 3-0 in Rio and 83-1 under coach Mike Krzyzewski, who took over not long after the last US loss at the Olympics, a 2004 semi-finals defeat to Argentina that still stings.
Australian teams are 0-19 against the US, but the full-game test they posed may fuel belief among other teams that the US squad can be threatened and perhaps denied a third consecutive gold medal.
“We’re a bit disappointed. We lost,” star Aussie center Andrew Bogut said.
“We had every opportunity to win the game. That’s an attitude change. We have a different feeling now and we want to keep that going.”
The Aussies have four NBA champion players and established themselves as perhaps the Americans’ biggest rivals for gold.
‘It got real’
Asked if the game was a USA wake-up call, US guard Paul George said: “It definitely got real.”
“We’re probably going to see them again and we’ve got to do a better job of matching them,” he said.
The Americans did not shoot well in the first half and trailed for significant stretches in the game.
But they scored the first nine points of the third quarter for a 58-54 lead and stayed in front until Joe Ingles’ lay-up put Australia ahead 72-70 with nine minutes to play.
A 10-2 US run, including eight points from Anthony, made it 80-74 and the persistent Aussies never got closer than four after that.
Bogut had 15 points for Australia and Matthew Dellavedova 11 points and 11 assists.
“A few mental lapses in the last quarter but we understand what we need to do to beat a great team like the USA,” Mills said.
In other Group A play, four-time NBA champion Tony Parker hit a game-winning jumper with 31 seconds remaining to give France a 76-75 victory over stubborn Serbia.
Parker, 34, Mills’ Spurs teammate, capped a game-ending 10-2 run by the French.
“It’s awesome,” Parker said. “It’s not everyday you hit a game-winning shot. It was great.”
The victory leaves France, which lost its opener to Australia, at 2-1 in Group A, with Serbia falling to 1-2.
“We had a rough start,” Parker said. “Now I feel we’re back to our identity and we’re playing a lot better.”
The victory means France, which has yet to face China or the Americans, is likely to finish third in the table and face a possible semi-final against the USA.
In a battle of winless teams, Venezuela outlasted China for a 72-68 win, dealing a potentially fatal blow to China’s hopes of advancing.
Nestor Colmenares lead the Venezuelans, now 1-3, with 16 points, while China’s Yi Jianlian had 18 points and 10 rebounds in defeat.
