USA Basketball’s senior men’s national team entered its five-game pre-Olympics exhibition schedule as overwhelming favorites to claim its third-straight gold medal this month in Rio de Janeiro. Five straightforward blowout victories has only strengthened their reputation as a group that should dominate the competition in Brazil.
Team USA closed out its exhibition slate on Tuesday night with another rout, defeating Nigeria 110-66 at Toyota Center in Houston. As with most games for the Americans, the result was a formality — in fact, it arguably only ended up within 50 points due to a 13-point fourth quarter from Nigeria’s Chamberlain Oguchi, who led all scorers with 21 points.
But there was plenty of reason for Team USA fans to watch with interest, because several stars came up with terrific highlights. This was the best one — a beyond-halfcourt alley-oop from point guard Kyle Lowry to center DeAndre Jordan.
But Lowry didn’t settle for that oop. He and his Toronto Raptors teammate DeMar DeRozan opted to finish their final Olympics tune-up with this combination.
Lowry was one of Team USA’s top overall performers, posting eight points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds as a fill-in starter for the resting Kyrie Irving. (Paul George also took the night off.) Carmelo Anthony made up for his decision not to join his teammates in a Vanessa Carlton sing-a-long with 19 points, while Klay Thompson shot 5-of-9 from behind the arc for 17.
While these five exhibition games did not come against the best competition, Team USA won by an average of 43 points and only really “struggled” in a game that saw them hold Venezuela to 45 points. Two of those exhibitions came against China, their opponent in Saturday’s Olympic opener (at 6:00 p.m. ET). Don’t be surprised by a similar result.
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