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Tim Duncan scores a team-high 15 points during the Dream Team's 89-53 rout of Angola on Monday.
Tim Duncan caught a pass in the opening moments of the first quarter and found just one defender, not two, guarding him.
It was the first time in the Athens Olympics he had seen such a sight, and Duncan gladly took advantage by dropping in a shot.
The rest of the Americans got a taste of what it was like in the good ol' days, too, finally playing an opponent they were able to beat easily as they routed Angola 89-53 Monday in their final game of the preliminary round.
"This was a fun game because we got to play a lot of people," coach Larry Brown said. "In the tournament thus far it's been hard giving guys a lot of minutes, but tonight we had an opportunity to do that and everybody played well."
Duncan finished with a team-high 15 points in just 13 minutes, and the Americans dominated the boards Barcelona-style with a 52-17 edge in rebounding as NBA commissioner David Stern watched from a seat 10 rows behind the American bench.
The United States, which had already locked up a berth in the quarterfinals, awaited the results of Monday's late games to learn whether it will play Spain, Argentina or Italy in the quarterfinals Thursday.
"The records are out the door and it's the best team that comes to play," LeBron James said. "It's win three games and get the gold. If our best team shows up, we can win the gold."
Angola had played well in two of its four losses, falling by just five points to Lithuania and three to Puerto Rico. But it was thoroughly outclassed this time by an American team that had yet to experience a blowout - except in defeat.
"All in all, we feel pretty good about this thing," Duncan said. "We're pretty excited about our opportunity and we like where we sit."
The Americans grabbed 28 of the first 32 rebounds, made their first two 3-point shots and then broke out their highlight-reel material to finish the preliminary round at 3-2, including losses to Puerto Rico and Lithuania.
Rather than going with the type of tight 2-3 zone all the Americans' previous opponents used, Angola (0-5) employed a matchup zone that left Duncan in single coverage. Duncan and Allen Iverson scored the first 13 U.S. points, and the Americans had a 16-2 edge in rebounding as they ended the first quarter with a 23-14 lead.
"We kind of expected them to play man-to-man, but I didn't think it would happen," Duncan said. "They came out in it, and we just wanted to be aggressive against it and jump on them early."
Shawn Marion took the U.S. team's first 3-point attempt 82 seconds into the second quarter and made it for a 28-14 lead, and James hit a 3 to make it 33-14. The U.S. team finished 3-for-6 from behind the arc and 33-of-60 (55 percent) overall.
"The only negative, I thought, was we turned the ball over a lot (12 times) in the first half, which has plagued us a lot in this tournament," Brown said.
The Americans were up 46-26 at halftime before Duncan scored their first six points of the third quarter, and an alley-oop reverse layup by Richard Jefferson off a pass from Iverson got the lead up to 30 less than four minutes into the second half.
It was 75-39 after three quarters, and Emeka Okafor, who had played a total of just two minutes in the U.S. team's first four games, was on the floor for the entire fourth quarter but failed to score.
James and Carlos Boozer had 11 points each, Iverson added 10 and Dwyane Wade, Marion and Amare Stoudemire had nine apiece. Lamar Odom did not score, and Stephon Marbury did not take a shot to keep his shooting percentage at 20 percent (6-for-30).
Valter Monteiro had 20 points for Angola, which had as many fouls (19) as field goals and shot just 6-for-25 from 3-point range after going 45-for-124 (36 percent) in its first four games.
The Americans planned to take a day off Tuesday before returning to practice Wednesday.
Source: AP