Superlatives really don't do justice to what we witnessed in Team USA's thrashing of Nigeria by a score of 156-73. The point spread should be enough, but even there we have the special feat of the team scoring an astounding 156 points in only 40 minutes of play, which meant that the they were scoring on average 4 points every single minute of the game. It was almost as if we were watching last summer's Rucker Park games or something, but even that comparison is in accurate because in those summer leagues, the star players tend to jack up 30+ shots per game while everyone else just stands around. This game was something else entirely.
No player better exemplified this kind of offensive perfection more than Carmelo Anthony, who hit a ridiculous 9-11 from 3-point range and scored 37 points in only 14 minutes of play, which means that 'Melo was hitting a 3-pointer almost every single minute he was in the game. Oh, and according to Coach K, the team had to reign it in at the end:
"We didn't play LeBron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] in the second half, and with Carmelo shooting like that, we benched him...We didn't take any fast breaks in the fourth quarter, and we played all zone. You have to take a shot every 24 seconds, and the shots we took happened to be hit."- Mike Krzyzewski
After the jump, two UCLA players connect for a silly alley-oop, and also, oops.
Ooh, James Harden. This kind of snafu is supposed to be reserved for the kids like Anthony Davis, not cool kats like you.
via SB Nation
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