In the end, despite all of the doubts, the Americans were too good for the rest of the competition. Team USA took care of business, as they romped their way to a gold medal at the FIBA Basketball World Cup.
Serbia had no chance in Sunday’s final match, going down convincingly 129-92 as the Yanks danced their way to victory. (France beat Lithuania 95-93 on Saturday for the bronze.) Per the AP:
“It kind of was, again, a smack to our face, saying the U.S. was sending the B-team to go play in the World Cup,” forward Kenneth Faried said. “Just because LeBron’s not here, Kobe’s not here, (Kevin) Durant’s not here, doesn’t mean anything. We can step up and win the gold, too. That’s what we did tonight.”
Tournament MVP Kyrie Irving made all six of his 3-point attempts and scored 26 points, and the U.S. repeated as world champion for the first time by crushing Serbia 129-92 on Sunday in the Basketball World Cup. […] James Harden added 23 points for the Americans, who made 11 of 16 3-pointers in a sensational-shooting first half, adding one final romp to a tournament full of them.
“I think the results were dominant, but we had spurts of dominance in a lot of games,” U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “And we had tough games and then all of a sudden we’d have a spurt and it looked like we dominated. Tonight we had like about a 35-minute spurt.”
