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szdaily -> Sports -> 
Kevin Durant leads United States into Olympic semifinals
    2021-08-04  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

BEHIND Kevin Durant’s 29 points, the U.S. men’s basketball team advanced to the Olympic semifinals with a 95-81 win over Spain yesterday.

Ricky Rubio paced Spain with 38 points in a battle of the two top-ranked teams in the world.

“We’ve just got to finish it. Got to finish it,” Durant said. “We’re supposed to be here. For us, it’s about getting the gold.”

Jayson Tatum scored 13 and Jrue Holiday added 12 for the U.S., which will play either Australia or Argentina in the semifinals Thursday.

The Americans also gave themselves the chance of extending a streak like none other in Olympic basketball history — in all 18 of their previous Olympic men’s basketball appearances, they’ve gone home with a medal.

Rubio was brilliant for Spain, Sergio Rodriguez added 16 and Willy Hernangomez scored 10.

Damian Lillard scored 11 and Zach LaVine added 10 for the U.S.

It wasn’t easy, and rarely is against Spain. This was the fifth time the teams had met in the Olympic quarterfinals or later since 2004; the U.S. is now 5-0 in those games, but the margin of victory in those is a close-by-American-Olympic-standards: 9.2 points.

And this one was no different. Spain actually led by 10 in the second quarter, before the U.S. went on what became a 36-10 run over the next nine minutes to take control for good.

“It was a huge boost,” Durant said. “We didn’t want to go into the half down double digits. ... We knew we didn’t want to get down big against this team.”

Spain had won three consecutive Olympic medals, taking silvers after losing to the U.S. in the gold-medal games in 2008 and 2012, followed by a bronze in 2016 after falling to the U.S. in the semifinals.

(SD-Agencies)

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