Venezuela Tops China to Notch First Olympic Games Triumph at Rio 2016

Venezuela fought valiantly, but it was only enough to keep them close for a quarter-and-a-half. The Americans move to 2-0 against Group A in the 2016 Olympic Games.

The teams were tied at 18 after the first quarter, with the big-bodied Echenique – who played against Cousins in high school and later played at Rutgers and Creighton – presenting a problem the Americans couldn’t quite solve.

Venezuela jumped to a 16-6 on a pair of Gregory Vargas free-throws midway through the first quarter and extended it to 25-13 by the end of the period.

Former NBA player and four-time Chinese Basketball Association Domestic MVP Yi Jianlian finished the game with 18 points and pulled down 10 rebounds to lead the Asian powerhouse, which has now lost 10 straight-Olympic matches dating back to 2008.

He took a charge with 38.4 seconds remaining and Venezuela holding a one-point lead.

Kevin Durant scored 16 points and Carmelo Anthony 14 for the USA squad, which may have grown a touch overconfident following a 57-point blowout of China in its tournament opener. “We still have more games to go, so hopefully we can break some more records”.

Amid the spectators watching Phelps create history were members of the Team USA basketball team. There will likely be tougher games ahead, but they haven’t had one yet.

The Venezuelans did what they could, but no matter what happened they weren’t going to beat this United States team. The Aussies, featuring five National Basketball Association players, four of them league champions, improved to 2-0 on Monday with an impressive 95-80 win over Serbia. They cruised from there, improving to 82-1 under coach Mike Krzyzewski and reminding everyone it’s going to take a special performance for 40 minutes to deny them another Olympic title.

Like college athletes who cheer on other sports when they aren’t playing, the USA men’s basketball team whoops and hollered for Phelps. “We played their game, but once we made that adjustment we were good”. He played cleanup on the glass with two put-back dunks and controlled the lane defensively whenever Venezuela tried to penetrate.