Behind Carmelo Anthony, USA Olympic men's basketball team survives Australia

RIO DE JANEIRO — Carmelo Anthony didn’t just become Team USA’s all-time leading scorer in the Olympics on Wednesday at Youth Arena. He saved the Americans from the kind of upset that would have tainted their gem of a program.

If they hadn’t downed Australia 98-88, overcoming this feisty team that got everyone’s attention in the first round with a blowout win over a favored France squad, the sterling shine would have been off. Instead, Anthony – the only four-time Olympian the men’s program has ever known and the only member of this team who was there the last time the Americans lost in Olympic play 12 years ago – added to his international legacy.

“I can tell you, I wasn’t thinking about (the loss to Argentina in) 2004 man,” Anthony said. “I was out there playing tonight. That experience – it is what it is. We accepted it. We know that feeling, and we don’t want to experience that feeling anymore.

“Being in those types of games, and taking advantage of different possessions, and understanding the difference of the game – time and score – and making plays.”

Did he ever.

This night that looked for a while to be nothing more than a novelty – the New York Knicks star passing LeBron James as the all-time American leading scorer in American Olympics history en route to an expected win – eventually became one of Anthony’s most memorable performances in any jersey. Anthony, who finished with a game-high 31 points on 11 of 21 shooting, hit three three-pointers in a little more than two minutes midway through the fourth quarter to put the Americans up 83-76 with 5:32 remaining.

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ Kyrie Irving took over from there, with no shot bigger than his three-pointer from the right wing with 1:35 left that put the Americans up 93-86. Irving, who is from Australia and even considered playing for their national team in his earlier years, finished with 19 points and five assists.

The Americans have won 71 consecutive games, 48 in FIBA and FIBA Americas competition. But that streak was in serious jeopardy for most of the night.

Since Jerry Colangelo overhauled the national program in 2006, Team USA has gone a remarkable 83-1. The lone loss, the one that Anthony talks about so often as the only remaining member of that squad, was the game against Greece in the 2006 World Championships in Japan that led to their bronze medal finish. It all flashed before Colangelo’s eyes during those tense moments down the stretch, when he sat next to Team USA CEO Jim Tooley and laid out the compelling fork in the road.

“I had confidence that we were either going to make a run or hit a few shots and turn it, and that’s what happened,” Colangelo said. “I told Jim … I said, ‘I’ll give you the storyline. There’s only two possible storylines tonight. One is (that) the streak is over. … The second one is they’re not invincible, because we had a close game.’ I would rather think that we needed a challenge, we needed something like this, not for a wake up call, just to prepare us for what lies ahead.”

The Australians, who boast five NBA players (four of whom have won NBA titles) and could still play their way into a rematch against the Americans in the gold medal game, were led by San Antonio Spurs point guard Patty Mills (30 points, including six three-pointers) and Milwaukee Bucks point guard Matthew Dellavedova (11 points and 11 assists).

“That’s the first real, real international game that we’ve had,” Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “The first two games we played, we were significantly better than those teams (China and Venezuela). This is the real world now, and that was good for us.”

Rio Olympics: Best images from Wednesday, Aug. 10