Sports Betting Blog

Few teams in Olympic Sports face as high expectations as the Team USA’s men basketball squad. For starters, the dream team is now officially on it’s 20^th Anniversary, and although the legacy has seen its ups and downs in the last two decades, anything but a gold medal is utter failure for the nation that holds the most competitive professional basketball league in the world. So yes, when the NBA-star filled Team USA goes into play, it is win or go home, every time, no matter who’s in front of them. This time, to open up their play at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, Team USA played against France and burst the game open in the second half to take an easy 98-71 win on Sunday.

The Oklahoma City Thunder star, Kevin Durant, took the top-performer honors for the North Americans, with 22 points, while his rival in the 2012 NBA Finals and this year’s NBA championship winner LeBron James of the Miami Heat, pitched in with 8 assists to round up a solid yet rough around the corners performance. Four years ago, the core of this team won Olympic Gold in Beijing and now they are trying real hard to do the same thing. But sometimes, out of the court, they have this tendency to become a little cocky. Both LeBron James and the LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant have hinted one way or another that they could defeat the original Dream Team of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. A couple of the original members have been quick to comeback with some answers to those comments. Larry Bird, for example, said that of course they could defeat them, he was now almost fifty years old.

Certainly enough there is no way to really know if this version of the Dream Team could actually defeat Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and the rest of the 11 future hall of famers that made that 1992 trip to the Olympics such a magical and game changing experience. One thing is for sure, they made it look much more easier then than what this team has shown. Sure enough Team USA was never in any real trouble playing against the French team. Even their biggest star, the San Antonio Spurs point guar Tony Parker seemed to be playing a little slow. Sure he had to undergo eye surgery a couple of weeks ago after he injured his left eye in a pub fight in New York City, but the google wearing Frenchman was not at his best. Neither where the other 5-NBA playing French players that hold it up strong in the first quarter, but eventually succumbed to the star ridden dream team.

The American would have plenty of time to improve in the second half. Let’s not forget that they struggled a little through a foul-filled first half in which the Americans were whistled for 18 personals fouls. Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook spent the final six minutes of the second quarter on the bench after picking up their third fouls. And by the end of the first quarter the French where down 22-21. But things got flying in the third quarter and by the last period there was no doubt the team USA would end up with an overwhelming victory. There is still plenty of work to be done, but things are looking bright for the Olympic Gold.