This post went up about an hour before tipoff of the gold medal game, and the entire world was already certain that the United States would defeat Spain for the gold medal in London. In the fourth quarter, that didn’t look like such a sure thing, but all that mattered at the end was USA 107; Spain 100. The betting line on the game went from 19 1/2 to 21 1/2, and Spain went from a 20-1 underdog to 25-1. Those were
// Team USA will face Spain on Sunday in a rematch of the 2008 Beijing final. The Americans survived Pau Gasol’s 21 points to win a 118-107 classic and recapture the gold medal they were unworthy of in Athens four years earlier. There was no way to tell by watching that fiercely contested final that only a week earlier, the United States had beaten the same Spanish team by 37. And when it comes to Olympic basketball, that’s just it. Given the
csprtContainer(); Can a Molten be split in thirds? Because the game ball for Wednesday’s 119-86 quarterfinal win over Australia should be divided up between Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Love. You knew there was eventually going to be an eruption from Kobe, even when he was scoreless at halftime. And erupt he did, going for six 3-pointers and 20 points in the second half, a bunch of those points coming in rapid succession as the U.S. team pulled away with a furious
Ruben Magnano coached a game that made all of his fellow Argentinians happy. Problem was, Magnano was coaching Brazil. Magnano made the curious decision to sit Anderson Varejao for the entire fourth quarter, and Argentina held off a strong fourth-quarter run by Brazil and defeated their South American rivals 82-77 Wednesday in the quarterfinals of the 2012 Olympics. Magnano, who coached Argentina to a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens but then had a falling out with the national federation, was
The French went down flagrantly, with a nut shot from Ronny Turiaf on Rudy Fernandez and a felonious foul by Nicolas Batum against Juan Carlos Navarro. France missed 11 consecutive shots before getting a meaningless one with 9 seconds left, and a new chapter of crunch time failure was added to Les Blues’ history book in a 66-59 quarterfinal loss at the Olympics in London. Batum committed an intentional foul that was so flagrant, a hard, long-armed swipe that knocked Navarro to
Remember when Andrei Kirilenko was young, precocious and was a nightly threat to produce one of those statistical anomalies known as a 5X5 — reaching at least five in five statistical categories? The old AK-47 was back in the Olympic quarterfinals on Wednesday, producing a beastly line of 19 points, 13 rebounds, three assists, three steals and three blocks as Russia defeated a Lithuania team that would not quit, 83-74. Timofey Mozgov also had a very strong game with 17 points, and
Train Station after the game! #Fasterwaybacktothehotel lol instagr.am/p/OAZntKyjXG/ — Chris Paul (@CP3) August 7, 2012
So we’re all getting a reminder of how things are really day-to-day in the Olympics, eh? A couple days ago, Carmelo Anthony had the new U.S. Olympics scoring record (37) and Team USA was considered unbeatable after they out Dream Teamed the original Dream Team and beat Nigeria by 83. Then we get through Day 4 of the competition, and the world has turned upside down. The single highest-scoring game now belongs to Patty Mills of Australia, who dropped 39 on Great