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USA advance to Rio Olympics basketball gold medal match with six point win over Spain

Klay Thompson played a big role for Team USA as they dispatched Spain. (Source: Wiki Commons)
Expert
19th August, 2016
1

DeAndre Jordan and Klay Thompson have led the USA to the gold medal match at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games with a strong six-point victory over Spain.

In a game that was heavily dominated on the defensive end, the USA put in what could be considered their best performance of the tournament so far at that end of the court to lead from buzzer to buzzer.

While it wasn’t a particularly attractive game or performance from the USA, they did the work required of them in the paint and got physical with Spain, shutting everyone bar Pau Gasol down to take a big enough lead into the final quarter.

DeAndre Jordan led their monster effort in the paint, and only stepped up his game more so after DeMarcus Cousins was fouled out late in the third quarter. Jordan would end up with nine points, 16 rebounds – a team USA record – and four blocks which really put Spain on the back foot.

What may worry the Americans is their continuing heavy reliance on the three ball. Spain played good defence, but not enough to trouble them consistently behind the arc, with the USA shooting just nine of 26.

Klay Thompson easily had his best performance of the tournament, hitting four three of eight from behind the arc but also looking to get aggressive and take into the paint, which he did regularly adding points and a lot of creativity which left the Spanish defence a step late on their rotation more often than not.

With both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving stepping up to drain 27 points between them, along with some other useful contributions off the bench it was enough for the USA to get the job done, with complacency for the most part seemingly out of their game.

Pau Gasol was the reason the game was within reach for Spain. He was absolutely fantastic, ending up with 23 points and eight rebounds despite nursing a knee injury and only playing 28 minutes of game time.

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With backup from Sergio Fernandez and Rudy Hernandez they were able to stay in the game – seemingly whenever they needed a big shot one of those three would stand up to deliver it with the USA never getting their lead outside of 15 points.

Felipe Reyes also had some big moments during the game and kept Spain it in at the back end of the first half.

Spain let the USA grab too many offensive rebounds and had a lack of good options on attack – no matter who they had on court, they were out-rebounded big time with the USA grabbing a massive 21 offensive boards.

This was in part due to foul trouble of Nikola Mirotic who along with others on both teams came out of the first half in all sorts of trouble after five technical fouls were blown in the second quarter alone.

Their creativity was an issue and one that neither Ricky Rubio or Carlos Navarro could fix with Jose Calderon seeing no game time to do anything about it. They simply couldn’t find enough open shots, and it told.

The USA, after coming out of the first quarter in front by nine points were never giving up their lead. The second quarter, as mentioned saw Spain fight back at the end after going down by 15 but they again were worse off in the third quarter.

Going into the final quarter after ten minutes of only just being able to match it with the USA and facing a deficit was always going to be tough, and as it turned out it was a bridge too far.

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In the end, the USA are through to the gold medal match with a six-point win.

Final Score
Spain 76
United States of America 82

Statistics
2-point field goals: Spain (43%), USA (45%)
3-point field goals: Spain (31%), USA (35%)
Free throws: Spain (75%), USA (50%)
Offensive Rebounds: Spain (14), USA (21)
Defensive Rebounds: Spain (27), USA (32)
Total Rebounds: Spain (41), USA (53)
Assists: Spain (14), USA (15)
Turnovers: Spain (11), USA (13)
Steals: Spain (8), USA (6)
Blocks: Spain (1), USA (7)
Fouls: Spain (21), USA (20)
Fast break points: Spain (14), USA (10)
Points in the paint: Spain (32), USA (36)

Statistics leaders
Spain
Points: Pau Gasol (23), Sergio Rodriguez (11)
Rebounds: Pau Gasol (8), Rudy Fernandez (7)
Assists: Sergio Rodriguez (5)

United States of America
Points: Klay Thompson (22), Kevin Durant (14), Kyrie Irving (13)
Rebounds: DeAndre Jordan (16), Kevin Durant (8)
Assists: Klay Thompson (3)

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