The US’ NBA stars routed Argentina 126-97 on Monday to remain unbeaten and set up showdowns in today’s Olympic quarter-finals, with the alluring chance of a US-Russia final on Sunday.
The US could meet Russia 40 years after a US squad lost to the Soviet Union in a controversial Olympic final where the last seconds were played three times before the Soviets won, the first US defeat in Olympic history.
“I’m up for that,” US star Kobe Bryant said. “That would be something special.”
Photo: Reuters
Indeed.
So bitter were the feelings that the US silver medals from 1972 remain unclaimed to this day.
First, those top-seeded teams must navigate a difficult playoff road that begins today when the US superstars face Australia, Argentina meet Brazil, Russia play Lithuania and Spain tackle France.
The US “Dream Team” only led Argentina 60-59 at halftime, before LeBron James ignited a 19-7 run to open the third quarter and the South Americans never recovered, the US squad stretching the lead as large as the final margin.
“We can be beat,” US playmaker Kevin Durant said. “We have always got to come out in the third quarter and try to turn it on.”
Durant scored 28 points, 17 in the third quarter, while James added 18 and Chis Paul had 17. NBA guard Manu Ginobili led Argentina with 16.
Spanish NBA stars blamed a fourth-quarter fade that led to an 88-82 loss to Brazil on nagging inconsistency, not a deliberate desire to lose in order to postpone a playoff matchup against the US.
“This team always plays to win. Always,” Spanish guard Jose Calderon of the Toronto Raptors said. “We’re never going to speculate about that. Never.”
The controversy came in the wake of a badminton match-fixing scandal that saw eight women banished for not trying to win in order to avoid an early knockout-round match against a favored duo that was upset in preliminaries, but Los Angeles Lakers big man Pau Gasol, who led Spain with 25 points, denied his squad was so hungry to avoid the US half of the playoff draw, which they did by losing.
“It doesn’t matter who we play,” Gasol said. “Right now it’s not happening for us.”
Spain fell to a Brazil side that lacked Washington Wizards center Nene Hilario, among the Olympic rebound and blocked-shot leaders.
“We wanted to come out with a victory,” Brazil’s Larry Taylor said. “We can’t worry about the future.”
Lithuania claimed the final berth in the quarter-finals by beating Tunisia 76-63, Renaldas Seibutis scoring all 10 of his points in a late 13-3 run that broke a deadlock at 59-59 and sealed the African champions’ fate.
Lithuania own a 4-3 edge in Olympic, world and European championship play against Russia, including an 86-79 triumph at the Beijing Games in the 2008.
“Russia are the favorites,” Lithuania’s Mantas Kalnietis said. “We have to play as a team to stop [Andrei] Kirilenko, but they have many options to shoot from outside.”
Australia inflicted Russia’s first loss of the tournament when NBA guard Patrick Mills sank a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Boomers an 82-80 triumph, although it had no impact on either team’s playoff seeding.
“Lithuania will be a very, very tough game,” Russia’s Sasha Kaun said. “They are playing tough basketball right now. It’s going to be a battle. The winner goes home, so it’s definitely going to be tough.”
The Aussies face the US, but they do so confidently after downing Russia.
“I don’t think intimidation will play a factor in the next game,” Mills said.
Nicolas Batum scored 23 points to power France over Nigeria 79-73.
Batum scored nine points in a late 13-6 run to break a 62-62 deadlock and he hit a three-pointer with 30 seconds remaining to seal the Africans’ fate.
Britain defeated winless China 90-58 in a game between teams already eliminated from playoff contention, but it was Britain’s first victory in Olympic group play after their 1948 men and this year’s women went winless.
“It’s huge. It’s GB’s first win ever at the Olympics. It’s an incredible feeling to finally get that win,” Britain’s Joel Freeland said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier