Rio 2016: Anthony carries United States of America past Australia

Canberra basketballer Patty Mills would have preferred to beat Team USA for his birthday present, but he is closing in on another personal milestone at the Rio Olympic Games.

Australia is in no way easy competition when it comes to basketball; especially with players such as Golden State Warriors center Andrew Bogut, among others.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The blowouts are over. The Olympics are underway.

Oh, you thought that the US men’s Olympic basketball team could cruise to a gold medal?

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

Kyrie Irving, who Australians like to claim as their own as he was born in Melbourne, was the second-best player for the US with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting, including a dagger from three down the stretch, similar to Game 7 against the Golden State Warriors.

“We knew going into [the game against the US] that we had to be physical with them defensively and get them out of their comfort zone”, Mills said.

The first American male basketball player to appear in four Olympics, Anthony also passed LeBron James as the most prolific scorer to ever wear a U.S. jersey.

Asked if the game was a U.S. wake-up call, United States guard Paul George said: “It definitely got real”.

Carmelo Anthony had a game-high 31 points for the United States, with Melbourne-born Kyrie Irving scoring 19 points.

The Americans had no problems dominating their pre-Olympics exhibition schedule, then opened in Rio with lopsided victories over China and Venezuela.

Anthony finished the game with 31 points, surpassing LeBron James as the all-time leading scorer for Team USA and passing the previous benchmark of 273.

“They can go pretty far and we’ll have to be better prepared if we run into them again”. “It definitely got real”.

Moving on: The U.S. women’s field hockey team advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating Japan 6-1.

It’s been established on multiple occasions that Carmelo Anthony’s Team USA teammates and coaches view him as the vocal leader of the 2016 Olympic squad.

Australia has defeated Serbia and France in these Olympics. Then the Aussies gave the team ranked No. 1 all it could handle.

The Americans clinched a spot in the medal round, though that was never going to be in doubt.

This morning, Australian time, the Boomers almost became the first team to knock off the world No.1 side at a Games since 2004.

While the United States put China and Venezuela away easily, Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova made them work hard for the win. The reason for that, of course, was the fact that they would be up agains their biggest competition to date in Australia in a titanic matchup budding with National Basketball Association talent.

Carmelo Anthony came to Team USA’s rescue with a record-breaking effort on Wednesday as the defending Olympic basketball champions beat Australia 98-88 in a thrilling encounter to extend their overall winning streak to 20 games.

Irving once considered playing for Australia, where he was born while his father was playing there professionally.

The Aussies hit hard and the Americans hit back, with George getting a technical foul for a shot at Dellavedova. “I would be very happy walking away from the game knowing that I’ve given the game everything I have, knowing I played on a high level at every level: high school, college, won [a championship at Syracuse] in college and possibly three gold medals”. I think we fought through it early on and we were down in the first half.

It will be interesting to see how the Americans react to Wednesday’s game going into their matchup with Serbia on Friday.