After destroying Nigeria by 83 points (156-73) and barely getting the best of Lithuania (99-94), Team USA faced arguably their toughest test of the 2012 Olympics on Monday against Manu Ginobili’s Argentina squad.
Even though Spain appears to be the biggest threat to Team USA’s gold medal campaign this summer with the two-headed monster of Pau and Marc Gasol, Argentina has always been a force to be reckoned with. Luis Scola and Carlos Delfino paired with Ginobili has proven to be a winning combination thus far.
Fortunately for both countries, the United States and Argentina were already advancing out of the preliminary round regardless of a win or loss on Monday. With that being said, neither team was entirely concerned about a win, but knew that a win would benefit moving forward in terms of confidence.
In the first half, Argentina showed were able to keep up with the Americans heading into halftime down only one point, 60-59.
Despite going toe-to-toe with LeBron James and company in the first half, Argentina was unable to counter a 42-point third quarter by Team USA. Kevin Durant exploded during this quarter with 17 points as the Argentine squad had no answer for the three-time NBA scoring champion.
Durant led the way for the Americans against Argentina with a game-high 28 points. Ginobili was the leading scorer for his squad with a team-high 16 points.
After Durant’s impressive performance in the third quarter, Team USA never looked back as they began to get out to an insurmountable lead and eventually and blew out Argentina, 126-97.
As a result of the loss, Argentina will now face Brazil in the quarterfinals and the United States will take on Australia. It seems as though it is a foregone conclusion that the Americans and Argentina will advance and meet in the later rounds.
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