Aussie-born, American-raised, Irving faces homeland in Rio

For the first time in this Olympic tournament, the United States found themselves trailing at halftime.

The U.S. men’s basketball team managed to hold off a feisty Australian squad, 98-88, on Wednesday night in Rio to improve to 3-0 in Olympic pool play.

Devoting time to his five children made sense.

Kyrie Irving and Team USA held on to top Andrew Bogut and Australia.

“Our competition up to this point has been preparing us to the degree we would like”, USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said.

Paul George’s stat line read five points, three rebounds, two assists, and a blocked shot at the end of the game. “We’re going to give it a red-hot crack that’s for sure”.

The USA fought through foul trouble and didn’t crumble against Australia’s disciplined and creative offensive sets.

Australia scored just 34 points in the second half, and the United States of America shot 56.3% and made 5-for-9 three-pointers in the fourth quarter.

Anthony had 14 points in the fourth quarter while Irving contributed 12.

Irving added a total of 19 points in the game.

“This is the real world now and that’s good for us”, coach Mike Krzyzewski said. The problem, as he saw it, was the officials didn’t allow them to stand toe-to-toe in that department. It’s not like something was given to us tonight. “We’ll play these guys again”. We will need to. This game kind of got out of hand with the chippy (play) and the physical play.

But it must have felt good to be on the other end of things this time.

Don’t get it twisted either. He understood it would be a long climb for him to be recognized as one of the top point guards in the USA with Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry and Deron Williams among those ahead of him in the deep American pool. It’s not always 40-point victories and dunk shows. We can look at many athletes joining the National Basketball Association team, it will be a guarantee for their team to bring home a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic.

Irving was born in Australia and has talked at length about about his tight relationship with Dellavedova – his title-winning backcourt teammate with the Cavaliers.

Irving’s surface roots Down Under will be just one of the subplots Wednesday when the US team, which has barely broken a sweat during its first two games in Brazil, faces unbeaten Australia.

Australia won’t be the only team to challenge. Heck, if it weren’t for his flailing antics, he might not have been suspended for a game during the Finals, and Cleveland might still be ring-less. Spain already has lost to Croatia and Brazil in Group B and Australia has beaten Serbia, although that win required a strong finish Monday.

“Delly’s gonna compete”, Irving said.