The U.S. Olympic men's team had given a 40-minute basketball clinic for the world, draining 3-pointers and throttling Nigeria by 83 points in a spectacular, never-before-seen performance Thursday night that even exceeded anything done 20 years ago by the 1992 Dream Team.
The current Dream Team broke the record for most points scored in a game with a score of 156.
Forward Carmelo Anthony broke the record for most individual points by a player in a Olympic game with 37 draining 10 of 12 three-pointers all in just 14 minutes, 29 seconds.
It's difficult to imagine the U.S. (3-0) playing any better on Saturday against Lithuania (1-2), which must be wondering what the 12-man-deep U.S squad has in store.
"We always try to make our mark, somehow, some way, and this is all well and good," U.S. guard Chris Paul said. "But the mark that we want to leave is to leave with another gold medal."
Following the game, Krzyzewski bristled when a reporter raised the possibility that the U.S. had intentionally tried to embarrass Nigeria, playing in its first games.
"Obviously, the first thing we did was not play LeBron and Kobe in the second half," Krzyzewski said defiantly. "The second thing was, even with Carmelo shooting like that, we benched him. We didn't play (Kevin) Durant. We didn't take any fast breaks in the fourth quarter, and we played all zone. You have to take a shot every 24 seconds, and the shots we took happened to be hit.
"I take offense to his question, because there's no way in the world that our program in the United States is ever out to humiliate anyone. And a coach would be humiliated if we didn't play hard, but the score is irrelevant to us. We just want to play well and win."
Click here to watch a live stream of Team USA playing Lithuania.
