Durant sparks U.S. to exhibition win over China
LOS ANGELES — Kevin Durant scored 19 points, Klay Thompson added 17 and the U.S. basketball team rolled to a second straight blowout exhibition victory, 106-57 over China on Sunday night.
DeMar DeRozan scored 13 points in his hometown, and DeMarcus Cousins had 12 points and seven rebounds in another impressive performance to open the Americans’ preOlympic tour.
Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan scored 12 points and led a strong defensive effort with three blocks for the Americans, who held the Chinese to 30.9-percent shooting.
After opening their showcase tour by trouncing Argentina in Las Vegas on Friday night, the U.S. team posted another rout at a packed Staples Center.
Anthony was the only holdover in the Americans’ starting lineup from Las Vegas. Krzyzewski put Paul George in with Anthony, Jordan, Kyle Lowry and DeRozan, whose family watched from courtside.
Jordan got the exhibition off to a rousing start with a blocked shot on China’s first possession and an alley-oop dunk on the other end for the Americans’ first points.
“We’ve only been together a week, but it seems like we’ve been teammates for years,” Jordan said.
Both teams had early shooting struggles, but the Americans took charge quickly late in the first quarter.
Durant, one of the two returning American gold medalists from London, quickly found his outside stroke with 14 points and four assists in the first half, and Cousins overpowered the Chinese down low for 12 first-half points on the way to a 55-29 halftime lead.
The teams meet again Tuesday in Oakland, where Durant will play in front of his new home fans for the first time since leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors earlier this month.
DEVELOPMENT
Australia team balks: The Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro flunked a stress test conducted by the Australian Olympic Committee, which found uninhabitable conditions and was left scrambling to find other quarters for its first athletes to arrive in Brazil.
The 31-building village is expected to house 18,000 athletes and officials at the height of the games. It was not clear how many athletes were housed in the village on Sunday.
The AOC encountered plumbing and electrical issues that included “blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed and dirty floors in need of a massive clean.”
And the committee offered even more sobering details.
“We decided to do a stress test where taps and toilets were simultaneously turned on in apartments on several floors to see if the system could cope once the athletes are in-house,” Kitty Chiller, the AOC’s chef de mission, said in a statement published in the Sydney Morning Herald. “The system failed. Water came down walls, there was a strong smell of gas in some apartments and there was shorting in the electrical wiring.”
Chiller added that Great Britain and New Zealand encountered similar problems Saturday night.
“There are lights, beds, air conditioning, but we still lack a few details,” an unnamed official told Reuters. “There really are last-minute details to finish, but it will be done this week.”
Italian team leader Carlo Mornati said his national Olympic committee, CONI, had been hiring workmen to carry out repairs for days.
The International Olympic Committee and local organizers said athletes with unfinished rooms would “be placed in the best available accommodation in other buildings,” estimating that fixing the problems “will take another few days.”