WASHINGTON – Tough start for the Americans. The Olympic basketball team couldn’t get a stop, the president couldn’t get a kiss.
Olympics
Kevin Durant scored 24 points and Andre Iguodala added 18 as Team USA cruised to a 113-59 victory over the Dominican Republic at the Thomas & Mack Center.
A fuming U.S. Sen. Harry Reid said Thursday that made-in-China uniforms for America’s Olympic team should be destroyed and not worn to opening ceremonies in London later this month.
Good luck convincing U.S. Olympic men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski that tonight’s game against the Dominican Republic at the Thomas & Mack Center is a meaningless exhibition. Krzyzewski has a lot of issues to deal with and some hard decisions to make before the Americans face France in their first preliminary-round game in London.
It was called “Blood in the Water,” the most famous water polo match of all-time. Hungary vs. the USSR, on Dec. 6, 1956, at the Melbourne Olympics. A month earlier, Soviet tanks had squelched Hungary’s rebellion. A less violent water polo match played in Las Vegas on Tuesday featured the U.S. women’s team, which will be playing in the Summer Games in London, and cast members of the Cirque du Soleil show “O.”
Ten-year-old Ferious Nieves was among 100 children of Nellis airmen who participated in the USA Basketball Hoops for Troops clinic at the base’s 3-month-old Warrior Fitness Center. “It was fun,” said Nieves, the son of Tech. Sgt. Jason Nieves. Legendary NBA coach Lenny Wilkens said the program “shows young people we have a lot of interest in them.”
The hurt will never completely leave Kevin Durant’s soul until he wins a championship. Fortunately, the Oklahoma City Thunder forward has a new goal to pursue, freeing himself mentally and emotionally from coming up short in last month’s NBA Finals to LeBron James and the Miami Heat: Olympic gold.
Kobe Bryant has been in Las Vegas practicing with the U.S. Olympic basketball team. He said “we have our work cut out for us” at the London Games against teams such as Brazil, Spain and Argentina.