U.S. Men’s Basketball Capitalizes On Depth To Tunisia

Eighty of the U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team’s (2-0) 110 points came from its reserve players in a 110-63 rout of overmatched Tunisia (0-2) in the 2012 London Olympics on July 31 at the Olympic Park Basketball Arena in London, including 16 points apiece from Kevin Love (Minnesota Timberwolves) and Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks), who was 6-of-6 from the field in 12 minutes played.

“My goal tonight was to try to get kind of an equal number of minutes for everybody in the game and to try some different combinations so there was really nothing meant by subbing five at a time except to get five new guys in and get a certain amount of minutes for each of them, and like in Andre’s case, he hadn’t gotten as many minutes,” said USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski (Duke University).

“Kevin Love is continuing to improve so we wanted to make sure he got his minutes. Anthony Davis. James Harden. Those guys got extended minutes. And it’s better to have extended minutes sometimes if you go in with a new unit, and so that was the only significance of any unit substitutions that I did.”

Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder) finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds; Anthony Davis (New Orleans Hornets) was 5-of-5 from the field – all five were alley-oops – and sank two free throws for 12 points; Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City Thunder) added 11 points; and James Harden (Oklahoma City Thunder) finished with 10 points. Chris Paul (Los Angeles Clipper) dished out a game-high seven assists.