The U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team (3-0) passed with flying colors and soaring dunks to top Greece (1-2) 92-69 Thursday night at Wukesong Arena in Beijing, China. This is consider to be the first real test of the team at 2008 Olympics. Having earned three wins in as many outings in preliminary group play, the USA also secured its berth into the Olympic medal round quarterfinals, regardless of the outcome of its preliminary round games against Spain (3-0) on Saturday and Germany (1-2) on Monday.
Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers) and Chris Bosh (Toronto Raptors) led the way with 18 points each; followed by 17 points, six steals and five assists from Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat); and 13 points, six rebounds and six assists from LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers).
USA and Duke University head coach Mike Krzyzewski said "Greece plays basketball the right way. They play hard, they play together and they're a difficult team to beat, and they were tonight. They missed some shots but we played very good defense and they played good defense. So, it was tough to get shots. We're proud of our effort. I thought we played one of the best teams in the tournament tonight."
"We knew if we got into them early, picked them up full court, we would kind of wear them down," said Chris Bosh. "In 2006 we just let them run their stuff, so we wanted to extend our defense and make them run their offense about 30 or 35 feet away from the basket."
"This was a big game for us. We had this game circled for a long time once we found out what the groups were," said Chris Paul (New Orleans Hornets), who played over 25 minutes of hawking defense while recording four points, three assists and two steals. "Greece is a very good team; they beat us in '06. There were a few of us on this team that felt like we needed this game to prove to ourselves that we mean business and we're ready to win this gold medal."
"Chris Bosh was terrific," Kobe Bryant said. "He always seems to find himself in the right place at the right time and when we penetrate he's able to find a little crack or seam and be able to finish. And defensively he did a great job on the pick and roll and stopping their guards from penetrating. He was getting steals and we converted them into easy points. He did a fantastic job."The men's Olympic quarterfinals action takes place Aug. 20, semifinals play is slated for Aug. 22 and the Olympic men's gold and bronze medal games will be held Aug. 24.
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