Facing a team in China that they blew out on two pre-Olympic exhibitions (by 50 and 49 points, respectively), the United States was expected to begin its run to a fourth consecutive gold medal in men’s basketball with an impressive showing at the Carioca Arena Saturday night. Mike Krzyzewski’s team took care of business as expected, battling through a couple short stretches of sloppiness to defeat the Chinese by the final score of 119-62 to move to 1-0 in Group A play.
While China managed to score the first two points of the game, that was the only semblance of control that they would enjoy in this one.