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Monday, 11 August 2008
BEIJING - US National Basketball Association stars made a strong start to their quest for redemption and Olympic gold on Sunday with a 101-70 rout over a China team that gave only occasional glances of a challenge.
Dwyane Wade scored 19 points, LeBron James added 18 and Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard each contributed 13 as the Americans romped in a game that was expected to draw a record global television audience of nearly one billion.
"It was an honour for us to be in this game. Both teams responded at a high level to the magnitude of this game," US coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
"No one has played in a match like this before. Unless people turned off their sets, this was supposed to be the most watched game. We're honoured and we treated it as such."
Chinese star center Yao Ming scored 13 points and grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds, living up to his star billing in the biggest game in Chinese history and likely the most important of his life.
"This is a personal Olympics for me," Yao said.
"Everyone is proud. It felt great, all the flags and people cheering. It was a great game, great atmosphere."
The Olympic hosts were impressive early, leading much of the first quarter and playing the American stars level at 29-29 six minutes before a 20-7 US run led to a 49-37 half-time edge. The US stars pulled away to stay after that.
"Psychologically it was very difficult to play this game," China coach Jonas Kazlauskas said. "These guys are heroes for some of our players."
US Olympic teams went 109-2 and won 12 gold medals through 2000 but were humbled in 2004 when NBA stars lost three times and settled for Athens bronze, sparking the new bid to reclaim the throne by the self-styled "Redeem Team".
US President George W. Bush, his wife Laura and his father, former US president George Bush, plus former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were among the famous faces in the sell-out crowd of 18,000 at Wukesong Arena.
"The atmosphere was great. We felt invigorated," China's Zhu Fangyu said. "We felt in form very early and for us it was a historic game."
With an up-tempo style of their own, China showed vast progress over past meetings with NBA squads, showing aggressive defence and deadly 3-point shooting at times.
China could reach the quarter-finals on home hardwood and improve upon the team's eighth-place Olympic showings in 1996 and 2004, China's best finishes in global competition.
Americans had dominated all nine prior games with China in world and Olympic competition with the most lopsided verdict a 133-70 US win at the 1996 Olympics. China's narrowest defeat was an 84-65 drubbing from the 2002 worlds.
The Americans started James, Bryant, Jason Kidd, Carmelo Anthony and Howard against a Chinese line-up featuring three NBA talents, Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian plus former NBA player Wang ZhiZhi.
Had China upset the US NBA stars, it would have been among the great sport shockers of all time. And for a while, it wasn't such a far-fetched notion.
Chinese fans were treated to the trademark high-leaping slam dunks of the fast-paced US squad plus a China team that sparkled early.
Chinese 2.26m giant Yao hit a rare 3-pointer to open the scoring, pumping his fist after the feat, and Sun Yue, who has agreed to an NBA deal with the Bryant-led Los Angeles Lakers, added another to give China a 6-2 edge.
"I didn't think of my future teammate. I was just concentrating on the game," Sun said.
A 3-point play by James gave the US its first lead at 7-6 but Sun hit another 3-pointer and a fast-break basket to put China ahead 11-7. Yao was blocking shots and teammates were making steals to thrill the fans.
Wade and James each made spectacular dunks to spark a US run but China stayed close, equalising at 29-29 on Sun's 3-pointer six minutes before half-time.
That's when the US stars took charge, Bryant nailing back-to-back slam dunks and lobbing a picture-perfect alley-oop pass to James for a slam dunk in a 20-8 run to pull ahead 49-37 at half-time and pull away for good.
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