Kyrie Irving hit a back-breaking three-pointer to put away Australia on Wednesday, and Draymond Green experienced painful flashbacks to Uncle Drew’s heroics in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals.
Still, Green congratulated his “son” for helping Team USA escape with a 98-88 victory.
CRYING at Draymond cheering then realizing that's the same shot that ended them 😂😂😂 RT @GM_Hoops: Look familiar? https://t.co/U7uQXlTEE4
— Freeband Bartholomew (@PrideOfLR) August 10, 2016
Kyrie's shot was clutch, but it might have hurt Draymond's feelings just a little bit: https://t.co/Ol1TPnu8an pic.twitter.com/gEjZ1YmUED
— SB Nation (@SBNation) August 11, 2016
The All-Star guard finished with 19 points in the win.
.@KyrieIrving scores 12 of his 19 points in the 4Q; Team USA survives its first test of the Olympics, beat Boomers – 98-88; improve to 3-0.
— Joe Gabriele (@CavsJoeG) August 11, 2016
Per USA Basketball:
(Carmelo) Anthony’s 31 points tied for the second-highest, single-game output in the U.S. men’s Olympic record book, and his 15 3-point attempts set the record.
“We kind of expected kind of a game like this, physical game, grind-out game from playing against Australia over the past couple of years,” Anthony said. “Coming into tonight, knowing what type of team they are, knowing the type of players they have on the team, we knew it was going to come down to the end of the game where we really had to buckle down and focus in and make plays down the stretch.”
“I feel like we needed a test like that to prepare for what’s ahead of us,” Irving said. “We definitely took some steps in the right direction and building our character and identity as a team. They really challenged us offensively and defensively, but we had a very resilient attitude. When you have a resilient group like this with tons of talent, when you are facing adversity, it makes it easy to come out of it.”