They’re both undefeated, 7-0, as they plowed through the opposition in these Olympic basketball games with confidence and elan.
So it should be a classic Olympic gold medal game Saturday when the United States plays Yugoslavia, right?
“I am 99.9 percent sure the Dream Team will win,” said Yugoslavia center Vlade Divac after his team defeated Lithuania 66-58 in the other semifinal game Thursday. “But we will not give up until the last buzzer.”
Even though the Yugoslavians conceded, they won the rest of the world’s gold medal in its game with Lithuania.
“The USA is far ahead of the world in basketball,” Divac said. “Our achievement to go to the finals to play against the Dream Team is the gold medal for the rest of the world.”
The gold medal the United States is expecting in these Olympics comes Saturday as the latest version of the NBA Dream Team qualified for the final game Thursday with a 101-73 victory over plucky Australia.
Charles Barkley led the United States with 24 points and 11 rebounds.
The win also upped the United States’ overall Olympic men’s basketball record to 100-2, the losses in the 1988 semifinals and 1972 final.
“Just one game left now,” Karl Malone said. “This is what we came here to do.”
Which is continue U.S. dominance in men’s basketball.
Australia may not have given the U.S. men a big scare, but they didn’t come afraid to play.
With shooting guard Andrew Gaze, formerly of Seton Hall, scoring 21 points on a barrage of three-pointers, several from beyond 30 feet, the Australians had the game tied at 36 with just over five minutes left in the first half.
The United States’s signature play a minute later was a sequence of four offensive rebounds that ended with Shaquille O’Neal leaping from halfway to the foul line and slamming.
The Australians, especially without Bulls center Luc Longley, who skipped the Olympics to have ankle surgery, couldn’t compete with the United States’ height and quickness, and the United States went off to a 51-41 lead at halftime.
The Australians seemed content in the second half to lose without great embarrassment, slowing the ball down as the U.S. defense kept Gaze scoreless the first 14 minutes of the second half.
But Australia didn’t quit fighting, literally, as Australian Andrew Vlahov got into shoving matches with Scottie Pippen and Malone, Malone drawing a technical foul in the second one.
And the cocky Australians weren’t about to say the United States would run away with the final game.
“It is more difficult to contain the offense against the Yugoslavian team than it is against the Dream Team,” Gaze said. “Yugoslavia’s offense is very clinical and structured. When you combine that with talent, size and quickness, they are clearly in a situation where they can be very competitive with the Dream Team.”
But Gaze added, “Although clearly the Dream Team will beat them.”
