US Dream Team II take gold
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from August 1994.
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The Americans made a habit of slow starts in their first seven games of the 16-team, 11-day tournament, but there was none of that in the title game. After scoring just 40 points in the first half of Saturday night's 97-58 semifinal victory over Greece, the United Stats matched that just 8:19 into the final and went on to its highest point total of the tournament.
The most "Dream Team I" - the 1992 U.S. Olympic team with Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and Larry Bird - scored was 127 points. Russia, which lost to the United States 111-94 Friday night, was coming off an emotional 66-64 semifinal victory over favored Croatia, a game that ended just 15 hours before tip-off Sunday. The Russians also played without their best big man, Andrei Fetisov, who was not in uniform because of an injured right ankle.
Derrick Coleman, starting for just the third time, got the Americans going with a 3-pointer and a three-point play in the first minute of the game, and Joe Dumars followed with another 3-pointer for a 9-0 lead. Coleman scored all of his 13 points during the 42-16 burst that started the game. After shooting 37 percent in the first half of the lackluster semifinal victory over Greece, the United States shot 71.8 percent (28-for-39) in the first half and led 73-40 at halftime.
Dominique Wilkins, the oldest American player at 34, led the United States with 20 points. Shaquille O'Neal, who finished as the team's leading scorer with an 18.0 average and was given the tournament's Most Valuable Player award, scored 18 in the final game, although he missed three 3-point attempts in the late going.
Alonzo Mourning scored all of his 15 points in the second half, and Shawn Kemp finished with 14.
Sergei Babkov scored 22 points, Mikhail Mikhailov 19 and Sergei Bazarevich 17 for Russia, which finished 6-2 in the tournament, with both losses coming to the United States. The former Soviet Union handed the Americans their most infamous defeats in the 1972 and 1988 Olympics. The latter loss, more than any other, led to the acceptance of NBA play. ers into international competition. That vote by FIBA led to the original Dream Team's appearance in the 1992 Olympics.
Dream Team I rolled to the gold medal, winning every game by at least 32 points. Dream Team II had three victory margins under 30 points, but Sunday's triumph was impressive. The final-game blowout improved Dream Team II's scoring average to 120.1, the equivalent of 144 points in a 48. minute game - the game lenght in the National Basketball Association. The original Dream Team averaged 117.3.
The devastating first half took any drama out of the game for the crowd of 32,616 at SkyDome, the largest ever to see a basketball game in Canada. A 3-pointer by Wilkins put the Americans at 100 points with 11 minute left in the game. The Russians had one good second-half stretch, scoring 10 straight points to make it 114-75.
