2012 Summer OlympicsMedia Monster

LeBron Records Triple-Double, And Other Facts About Team USA’s 119-86 Victory Over Australia

by Jordan Rabinowitz | 8:47 pm, August 8th, 2012

In a basketball game that miraculously didn’t include any crotch shots, the U.S. men made relatively easy work of Australia in their quarterfinal matchup. Kobe Bryant finally decided it would be a good time to start playing basketball and LeBron James made Olympic history, because of course he did. Here are some other takeaways from the hoops game!

-King James put up 11 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists, which to nobody’s surprise gave him the <a href=”http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/story/2012-08-08/olympics-live-blog-wednesday/56871298/1″>first triple-double in the Olympics, ever. Not just for him. Not just for the U.S. For every player ever (UPDATE: Reader Eric chimes in and notes that the first Olympics triple double was in 1976; still, LeBron played a fantastic game), proving further that there is very little this man can’t do with a basketball in his superhuman hands (asking out swimmers being the exception). Still, his stat line wasn’t even the most notable for Team USA. I guess that’s what happens when you wake the sleeping beast with five fingers’ worth of NBA Championship brass.

-Speaking of which, someone told Kobe Bryant he was in London to play basketball, not to just appear in random Olympic athletes’ Instagram uploads. It took him a half (he shot 0-for-3 in the first 20 minutes), but Kobe finished with 20 points, shooting a 6-of-10 clip from beyond the arc. That Black Mamba’s starting to look a little red, white and blue.

-Still no crotch shots. Phew.

-Team USA will play Argentina in the semifinals, which will be their third game against the Argentines in the last month. In an Olympic exhibition, U.S. won 86-80, and in pool play won 126-97. Before Manu Ginobili’s bald spot grows to the size of Buenos Aires, maybe he can be fueled by the fact that his squad beat a U.S. Dream Team 89-81 in Athens en route to a gold medal. Of course, that was a different era and a different team. Recent history looks like it’ll dictate otherwise.

These guys are doing just fine. Craig Sager however, is probably counting down the days until he can take those hideous solid blue polos off and exchange them for something more his style.

[USA Today, photo via Getty]