USA 116, Australia 85
BEIJING — At some point in this men's basketball competition at the Beijing Olympics, nearly every player on the U.S. team has seized a moment or two for his own.
If you're Argentina, that has to make you nervous.
Not every U.S. player has had his turn.
Kobe Bryant's moment came Wednesday night as he scored 25 points with four 3-pointers to lift the U.S. to a 116-85 victory over Australia and a spot in Wednesday's semifinals against Argentina.
The U.S.-Argentina game is a rematch of the 2004 Athens Games semifinals when the U.S. famously took a bad turn and Argentina's Manu Ginobili became a national hero by sending the U.S. into the loser's bracket en route to the gold.
"We want to play the best, the defending champs," Bryant said. "There is a sense of pride that comes from beating the champs."
The Americans have sought out and destroyed every other historical boogeyman lurking in every corner in these Olympics to arrive two victories short of an Olympic gold medal.
Australia was the last team to push the U.S., losing by 11 on Aug. 5 in Shanghai. The U.S. beat the Aussies by 31 on Wednesday.
Greece was the last team to beat the U.S., back in the 2006 World Championships in Japan. The U.S. beat the Greeks by 23 in pool play and Greece could not get past Argentina on Wednesday.
Argentina is the last team to beat the U.S. in the Olympics.
Ginobili said everything is different now.
"We know we were a different team four years ago and they were a different team," he said after he and Carlos Delfino combined for 11 3-pointers and 47 points to hold off Greece 80-78 in their own quarterfinal game.
Four years ago, Ginobili nearly dragged Argentina into the gold-medal game. Will it take that kind of performance to beat the U.S.?
"Of course, but effort is not going to be enough," Ginobili said. "Playing a great game is not going to be enough. A lot of things are going to have to blend in together to have an opportunity to win but we're going to try."
The Americans mostly couldn't take their eyes off the television monitors, watching the opening moments to the Argentina-Greece games, during interviews after their own victory over Australia.
The U.S. didn't let their forward-charging pace waver on Wednesday though it had to hit a few more 3s early to force the Australians to come out of their zone defense.
The U.S. picked up all the steam it would need when Bryant scored 17 of the Americans' 36 points during an 11-minutes stretch where they went from a 33-30 lead in the second quarter to a 69-43 lead with 6:36 left in the third.
Australia guard Patrick Mills, who will be a sophomore at St. Mary's College in California next season, seized his own spotlight during the game while scoring 20 points and leaving USA guard Chris Paul behind on one play.
"I'm glad my Duke team doesn't have to play St. Mary's next year," USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said when asked about Mills. "The tape doesn't do him justice. We should fast-forward it. I love him defensively. ... He's got a great future."
The U.S. future is now. The Americans have been salivating for a chance to redeem themselves in this Olympics, specifically against Argentina.
U.S. stars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Carlos Boozer played on that 2004 team that lost in the Olympic semifinals and set in motion the three-year effort to revamp the USA Basketball program.
The game will feature the two top-ranked teams in the FIBA rankings, which take into account international wins and losses. The U.S. is No. 1 with an 832.2 rating. Argentina is second at 726.
In this tournament, the U.S. and Argentina are also the two best defensive teams (70.8 and 72.2 points per game allowed, respectively) and the two best at sharing the basketball (20.4 and 17.4 assists per game, respectively).
"[The Americans] are playing better, with more aggressiveness, with more respect to the rest of the world," said Ginobili, also a star with the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA. "And they have an athletic ability that has no comparison. It will be really tough but we gotta play so we better do it right."
