Three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings stopped by SportsCenter on Wednesday to discuss the road ahead:
White House visit one more chance for Team USA to bask
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Welcoming sporting champions to the White House is a ritual that goes on no matter what -- a rare, unequivocally happy moment in the life of both athletes and the president who serves at the time of their success.
Friday, it was a brief respite from world events, in this case the tragic deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans working at the consulate in Libya that lowered flags around the country to half-staff and made one of President Barack Obama's later appointments a somber one. Just two hours after Obama stayed past the allotted time to shake the hands of as many Olympians and Paralympians as possible, he departed by helicopter for Andrews Air Force Base to be present when the diplomats' remains arrived.
But for one sunny hour on the South Lawn, close to 400 athletes basked in the afterglow of their achievements this summer in London. The president called himself the "Fan-in-Chief" who taped events so he could watch them at the end of his long workdays; first lady Michelle Obama, who led the U.S. delegation in London, singled out double Paralympic swimming gold medalist Brad Snyder, a Navy lieutenant blinded while on duty in Afghanistan last year.
Then, for once, the tables were turned. Rather than being swarmed by fans, it was the athletes who came down off the risers and lined up for photo ops and hugs from Mr. and Mrs. Obama, who were joined by Vice President Joe Biden.
Gold medalist Aries Merritt maintained his Olympic peak and set a world record in his specialty, the 110-meter hurdles, in Belgium last week. He was pleasantly surprised when the president recognized and greeted him as "the hurdle guy," and decided to share a personal story: His grandmother, Louise Hubbard, who died shortly before the 2008 election, predicted Obama would win, he told the president.
Sprinter Sanya Richards-Ross, who doubled up on gold in the 400 meters and 4x400 relay, initially found herself tongue-tied and couldn't muster the thanks she'd planned to express for support from the top. "Michelle Obama embodies, to me, a woman who supports her husband and is a great role model," Richards-Ross said. She did eventually find her voice to ask Mrs. Obama if she could be a part of the "Let's Move" youth fitness initiative -- a request the first lady obliged by putting her in touch with an assistant.
For Richards-Ross, who is committed to competing in the 2016 Rio Games, the White House visit represented the end of a four-year cycle but not a career. The day was slightly more poignant for 2008 fencing silver medalist Tim Morehouse, who was attending his third White House team gathering but is retiring from competition.
"I'm a fencer for life," said Morehouse, who once fenced the president at a White House event. "It doesn't mean I'll never pick up my sabre again." In fact, he is finalizing the details of a New York-based pilot program to train physical education teachers to teach fencing. "I want to get a million kids fencing," he said.
President Obama singled out several athletes in attendance, including swimmer Michael Phelps, who now holds the all-time medal haul record of 22; sprinter Tyson Gay; weightlifter Holley Mangold; discus thrower Lance Brooks; Paralympic volleyball player Kari Miller; and 15-year-old 800-meter swimming gold medalist Katie Ledecky, whom Obama praised for finishing her summer high school reading assignments amid all the excitement.
He also called Manteo Mitchell, who finished his leg of a 4x400 preliminary heat with a broken shin bone, "one of my favorite stories of the whole Olympics."
Open water safety issues re-surface
Open water safety issues that emerged in the aftermath of Fran Crippen's drowning death almost two years ago are still on the front burner for top U.S. swimmers, and many were angry when they were informed last week they would have to foot at least part of the bill to bring their own coaches to international events.
USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus told ESPN.com on Tuesday that the memo sent by the national team staff was premature and the federation's board of directors, which is meeting in Greensboro, N.C. this week, voted Tuesday to allocate sufficient funds to pay for coaches' travel. FINA, the sport's international governing body, has instituted a one-coach-per-athlete requirement at international events of 5 kilometers (3 miles) or longer to help track and feed athletes during races.
"People were understandably upset," Wielgus said. "Things got ahead of themselves, and that memo shouldn't have gone out."
Among those most upset was Crippen's father Pete, who sent a strongly worded email to Wielgus and USA Swimming president Bruce Stratton when he learned what the swimmers had been told.
"Do we have to sacrifice another athlete because USA Swimming does not want to spend the money which is readily available?" Pete Crippen wrote in a letter he forwarded to ESPN.com.
Despite the work of two different commissions charged with investigating Fran Crippen's death and making recommendations to prevent another tragedy, it's fair to say that open water safety reform is still a work in progress.
Water and air temperatures in the 90s on the course in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, contributed to Crippen's death in October 2010. FINA is still awaiting the results of a scientific study to determine how to set a maximum water temperature for open water races. Swimmers from around the world have lobbied for a maximum in the low-to-mid 80s. USA Swimming-sanctioned races now abide by a maximum of 29.45 degrees Celsius, or 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and a heat index maximum of 177.4 degrees that factors in the ambient air temperature. (A minimum temperature of just under 61 degrees was already in place prior to Crippen's death.)
FINA's recommended maximum is 31 degrees Celsius, or 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit, a recommendation numerous swimmers and observers said was blatantly violated at the 2011 world championships in Shanghai in the 25-kilometer race. The measurement is taken before the start, and in a warm-weather climate would naturally rise as the race goes on. Several top athletes, including 2009 25K world champion and 2012 Olympian Alex Meyer, refused to compete in the longer event.
U.S. swimmers were under the impression that the USA Swimming board of directors was prepared to endorse the FINA maximum for international events, but Wielgus said he doesn't expect any formal action this week and added that the federation wants to see the results of the scientific study.
The coaching issue is not a simple one either. The one-coach/one-athlete rule is a good concept, but college jobs are the backbone of U.S. elite programs, and in practice, many coaches could be hard-pressed to travel to far-flung World Cup and Grand Prix races in South America, Europe and Asia during the NCAA season. That experience is crucial to success at world championships and the Olympics, swimmers and coaches say.
USA Swimming open water program manager Bryce Elser, who comes from a pool swimming and ocean lifeguarding background, travels with the team, but federation
officials have told open water team members that the coach assigned part time to the program, Paul Asmuth, is being let go.
The 10K event was added to the Olympic program in 2008. This summer, USC swimmer Haley Anderson won a silver medal in the women's race, while Meyer finished 10th in the men's race.
Good! The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency finally got that bad, bad Lance Armstrong. Now, I hope they’ll finally go after Babe Ruth for all those beers he drank during Prohibition.
I am no Lance apologist, but I am an avid cyclist and cycling fan, and frankly, I wonder what good can result from USADA’s decision Thursday night to strip him of his seven yellow jerseys. Three of those Tour de France victories came a decade or more ago, while the most recent was seven years ago. That's so long ago it would have been considered ancient history even in the pre-Twitter world.
It’s not like taking away Lance’s victories will correct a past injustice. With the rampant use of performance-enhancers, we cannot automatically say the second-place finisher each year rode clean (yes, Jan Ullrich, I’m talking about you). In fact, combine this latest decision with all the Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador, Ullrich, Bjarne Riis, Operation Puerto scandals/mia culpas, and as far as I can tell, no one actually won the Tour de France from 1996 to 2007. The cyclists rode 20,000 miles and climbed countless mountains to exhaustion for no reason whatsoever. Tour de France announcers Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen should have spent those 12 Julys at the beach instead.
There are two reasons why cyclists are busted so often for performance-enhancers: One, they obviously use them to excel in a sport that demands they race more than 100 miles a day for three weeks during the biggest stage races. The other reason is that, like track and field, cycling actually tries hard to catch the cheaters by testing them repeatedly. You can even be banned just for not letting people know where you are on a given day (2007 Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen was dropped by his team for that very reason). Get caught doping and you can be banned anywhere from several years to life.
This is unlike American team sports, especially football, where the players grow ever bigger, faster and stronger despite assurances that they are regularly tested. And even if they are caught, the players miss as little as four games. And fans prefer it that way. They don’t want a sport’s biggest names regularly banned -- particularly if they have them on their fantasy teams.
That’s what concerns me most about the fallout from this latest Lance decision. I don’t worry about the sport, but I worry for the fans, specifically the potential fans that will be lost.
Lance’s Tour success inspired many Americans, myself included, to get on their bikes and ride. Forget about his considerable work in raising funds for cancer research (I think we still will all treat cancer as a serious issue regardless of what happens to a bicyclist), Lance also turned many of us onto cycling and got us hooked on a healthier lifestyle. Thursday night’s news will not stop us from riding or from following races. But what about those potential fans who will be turned away from cycling and never get on a bike to experience the joys and health rewards of the sport (not to mention the gas-saving benefits)?
On the one hand, these intense testing programs are necessary to keep the competitive playing field at least semi-level. On the other hand, the sport eventually winds up eating itself, turning every single one of its athletes into a suspect, making all top performances suspicious and driving away potential fans to other sports.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we should not test. I applaud baseball for cracking down -- the recent Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon bans are proof the sport takes testing seriously -- and appreciate that home run and other batting statistics have returned to the norm.
We must test. But we also must draw a line somewhere. And going after athletes for something they might have done seven to 13 years ago clearly crosses that line. Stripping Lance of his titles does far more harm than good. USADA should have let this one go. The agency exists to police sports, not destroy them.
Rather than investing so much money and effort chasing an athlete from the previous decade, perhaps we should be more focused on catching the current cheats.
• By winning Sunday's gold-medal game against Spain, Team USA has automatically qualified for the 2014 World Cup of Basketball in Spain, formerly known as FIBA's quadrennial world championship.
The Americans will take a 50-game winning streak into that competition, dating to a semifinal loss to Greece at the 2006 world championship in Japan. Coach Mike Krzyzewski leaves the bench with an overall record of 62-1 and a 17-game winning streak in the Olympics.
• Kevin Durant's 156 points trumped Argentina's Manu Ginobili for the highest total of the tournament ... by a single point. Australia's Patty Mills of the San Antonio Spurs had the Olympics' highest scoring average at 21.2 points per game, followed by Durant's 19.5 ppg.
Durant is the fifth player in U.S. history to score 30-plus points in an Olympic game, but the first to do so in the final.
• Durant's 34 3-pointers doubled the U.S. record of 17, set by Reggie Miller in 1996 and matched by Kobe Bryant in 2008. In London, Carmelo Anthony (23) and Bryant (17) combined with Durant to approach the team record of 77 in 2008 in Beijing.
• For those of you who simply can't bear to go on without one last Dream Team comparison, here are the statistical basics of what the teams achieved:
ESPN's T.J. Quinn and Julie Foudy on Team USA's win over Spain, the men's marathon and their overall impressions of the 2012 Olympic Games:
Jeff Gross/Getty ImagesFarnce's Bertrand Gille (6) shoots and scores past Sweden's Tobias Karlsson (18). LONDON -- I came to England almost three weeks ago to tell the stories of some of the greatest Olympic athletes in the world. Michael Phelps. Missy Franklin. Jordan Burroughs. But along the way, I fell in love. Not with a woman, an ideal, a plate of fish and chips or a frosty cold pint of London Pride.
No, I fell in love with a sport that I had somehow spent my previous 35 years ignoring. Team handball. With a free night on Wednesday, I curiously stumbled into the Copper Box to check out the game I vaguely remembered from high school gym class.
What I found was an athletic, fast-paced, up-and-down, in-your-face sport that had me jumping out of my seat and screaming in delight, much to the confusion of everyone else in my section. They had all seen this before. Me? Not so much. On at least three occasions I literally came out of my seat after watching someone jump in the air and then single- double- and triple-pump fake his way to a goal. And each time I was met with a look like, "What's wrong with him?"
So on Sunday, as the 2012 London Games came to a close, there was but one place I told my editor I wanted to be: In the basketball arena for the team handball final between Sweden and France. Here were two different countries I had never been to, speaking languages I didn't understand, playing a game I struggled to comprehend, and I ate it up. My version of culture, I suppose.
The match itself did not disappoint. I'll spare many of the details because, really, you don't care. I'll just tell you that France was forced to play the last minute and a half a man down due to a penalty but still held on to win 22-21. It was awesome.
So what exactly is it that I love about the game? Everything. It's water polo without water. Lacrosse without sticks. Soccer using your hands. Basketball with a 3-by-2-meter goal instead of a 10-foot-high hoop. The game moves fast, there's lots of scoring and getting shots off takes an incredible amount of size, skill and athletic coordination.
That's because the goal area extends in a D-like shape 6 meters out from the actual goal. It looks like a 3-point line. And the only person allowed in the area with the ball is the goalkeeper. No offensive player can shoot within this darkened zone. So what the offense does is pass back and forth and shuffle men in a pattern similar to a three-man weave, hoping to create a gap in the defense. When a shooter sees a gap, he charges to the line and right before he gets there he jumps, elevates and throws the ball often in excess of 100 miles an hour at the goalkeeper.
But while in the air, players will almost always pump fake and alter their shots to confuse the goalie. You think Michael Jordan's jump-one-way-and-shoot-the-other layup in the '91 NBA Finals was impressive? That happened like five times here Sunday. There was a French triple-pump. A Sweden player jumping straight into a French defender, maintaining his composure and unleashing a goal-scoring laser into the back of the net.
And the best part is that after almost every goal, there's a collision. Sometimes it's with another player. Other times it's with the ground.
And of course, this begs the question: What about the U.S.? Well, the U.S. didn't even qualify for London and hasn't competed in the Olympics since 1996 in Atlanta, where it qualified automatically. There, the men finished ninth out of 12 teams. The women eighth out of eight.
Why are we so terrible? Part of it is a lack of interest. Part of it is the USOC's reducing its funding for the U.S. team by 20 percent last year. And part of it is the fact that our country focuses on a different indoor court sport: basketball.
But I'm not sure I buy that popular last argument. I get it, we play baseball instead of cricket. We're more interested in American football than the world's game. And so it would make sense that we play basketball instead of handball. One or the other.
But what about the French? They won the gold medal here on Sunday in handball and had a 4-1 record during prelims in the men's basketball tournament before losing to Spain in the quarterfinals. Why can't we do both?
Because four years from now in Rio, I want to be in some rocking Brazilian arena, the crowd screaming at a deafening pitch, with the red, white and blue flying up and down the court trying to outmaneuver some Croatian goalie in my new favorite sport.
I know, I know.
Keep dreaming.
Instant Analysis: Team USA 107, Spain 100
How it happened: Warning signs were there for the United States from Spain's very first possession, when Juan Carlos Navarro, someone Team USA has struggled to contain in the past, absorbed a foul from Kobe Bryant after draining a 3-pointer to start the afternoon with a four-point play.
A tone was quickly established.
Plagued by plantar fasciitis throughout the tournament, Navarro wound up scoring 19 of his 21 points by halftime, benefiting most from some classic Spanish offensive execution that had the underdogs within a point at intermission at 59-58. Making a high percentage of shots, finding holes in the U.S. defense with its ball and player movement and keeping turnovers down so the NBA All-Stars couldn't run, Spain seemed to have found a formula to shock the world.
And not even Marc Gasol's astonishing four fouls in the first quarter and a half would slow the Spaniards down. With Pau Gasol absolutely taking over in the third, looking every bit like the "beast" he proclaimed himself to be before the tournament started with 15 of 24 points, Spain stayed right there with its heavily favored foes well into the fourth.
Eventually, though, Team USA just had too much Kevin Durant, along with just enough from a foul-plagued LeBron James (including a big dunk and an equally huge 3 late) and some big fourth-quarter contributions from Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant, to grab the gold.
It was even closer than it was in Beijing in 2008, when Spain lost by just 11 points in the final, but the United States ultimately snagged its 14th Olympic gold medal in men's basketball.
How close? It's the second-closest Olympic final ever, second only to the USSR's infamous one-point defeat of the United States in the highly controversial gold-medal game in 1972.
What it means: If he really can't be talked into staying on as Team USA head coach, as it appears, Mike Krzyzewski will be leaving international coaching with a record of 62-1 ... and a tidy 50-game winning streak.
Since a semifinal loss to Greece at the 2006 Worlds in Japan, Team USA has indeed reeled off 50 consecutive W's in full senior national-team games, with 17 of those coming in the Olympics since a semifinal loss to Argentina in Athens in 2004 before the Krzyzewski Era began.
Player of the game: Durant had to be good to bump Pau Gasol (24 points, eight rebounds and seven assists) out of this spot.
And he was sensational.
Scoring a game-high 30 points even without his 3-ball going down as early and often as usual, Durant carried the Americans' offense like he did at the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey, combining with Paul in the fourth quarter to help the Americans weather the long stretch of crunch time it had to survive without James.
Play of the game: Two biggies from Paul, actually, helped saved Team USA in this one.
With James forced to the bench after picking up his fourth foul with 7:23 to go and Spain switching to a box-and-one to try to corral Durant, Paul produced a 3-pointer and a slick drive for a layup in succession, beating Sergio Rodriguez badly on the baseline on the latter scorer with a clever head fake at a time when the Americans were struggling for offense.
Paul delivered another driving layup late to beat the shot clock and Kobe Bryant finished with 17 points in support of Durant and James to help the Americans finally seal it and spark a flurry of joyous (and relieved) hugs in the final minute.
By the numbers: Team USA averaged 106 points per game in its eight victories, winning by an average margin of 32.1 points per game.
It was the third gold-medal meeting between the United States and Spain ... and the Spanish keep getting closer. The Yanks won by 11 points (118-107) in 2008 in Beijing and by 31 (96-65) in 1984 in Los Angeles.
No American had ever drained more than 17 3-pointers in an Olympic run before London 2012. But in these Olympics, Durant finished with 34 3s in eight games, with Carmelo Anthony (23) not far behind. So much for the fears that even USAB officials had during training camp in early July that this team might not have enough shooting on the roster.
It's back to work for disappointed Montano
Montano said allowing herself to be boxed around the last curve of the women’s 800-meter final Saturday evening probably cost her a shot at a medal. Instead, she finished fifth in 1:57.93, more than a half-second off her personal best. Russia's Mariya Savinova won gold in 1:56.19.
Streeter Lecka/Getty ImagesAlysia Montano stands dejected after finishing in fifth place in the 800-meter final on Saturday. “It’s been such a long road to get here,’’ said Montano, a four-time national champion in the event who competed for the University of California at Berkeley. “It feels like it took forever and now it’s here and gone.’’
The 26-year-old said she thinks she has a lot of growing to do as a runner and intends to get to work on that right away: “There’s no giving up. That’s not part of my DNA.
“Racing in the U.S., our women aren’t as aggressive. I love the opportunity to be able to race and get gritty with the best 800-meter runners in the world, but I still see myself making little errors, and in the last 200, I got stuck.
“I have some things to tie up. Fortunately, I’m going to have the time to do that.’’
Montano said she feels as if she has “been knocking on the American record (1:56.40) door for a while.’’ A foot injury forced her to withdraw after the first round of the 800 at the 2008 Olympic trials, but she came back to become national champion in the event in 2010 and 2011 and finished fourth at the world championships in the 800 last year.
ESPN's George Smith previews Sunday's men's basketball gold-medal game between the United States and Spain:
ESPN's T.J. Quinn breaks down Jamaica's world-record win in the men's 4x100 relay and the American women's 4x400 relay gold:
After winning the gold medal in decathlon, Ashton Eaton chats with ESPN.com's Jim Caple at the P&G House:
ESPN.com's Bonnie D. Ford and ESPN's T.J. Quinn discuss the women's 4x100 relay victory, the men's 4x400 relay silver and Morgan Uceny's fall in the 1,500-meter race:
U.S., Spain wins set up must-see final
The mission for each was to get through the semifinals with as little drama as possible to set up the gold-medal match (Sunday, 10 a.m. ET), and while Spain had plenty of drama in coming back to beat Russia, eventually the U.S. kept chucking its way out of trouble every time Argentina got close. You may think of the U.S. as being the most prolific 3-point shooting team in the world; in fact, some nights the Americans over many Olympic competitions have looked downright unfamiliar with it. But not Friday.
It was like a University of Kentucky game at Rupp Arena, what with the U.S. taking 42 3-pointers, more than half the team’s 81 shots, and hitting 18 of them in what turned into a 26-point rout. Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul kept firing and between made 3s, long rebounds turning into second-chance baskets and defensive rebounds turning into fast-break points Argentina couldn’t keep up. Even with Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola scoring pretty much the way they do every night in the NBA, Argentina just couldn’t fend off a team with too many great players.
Scola, after scoring 15 points but inexplicably grabbing only one rebound in 30 minutes, said, “I thought we could win the game … but they’re just a better team.”
Asked specifically why this team is better than others Argentina has played (and beaten) in U.S. competition, Scola said, “This team is more prepared to play in a different environment … with different rules, against a different style of play, with different referees.”
In other words, Scola was saying that while the U.S. team has often won international competitions, this version looks like the other international teams playing in this tournament, not a bunch of NBA players relying on talent to get them through a very different basketball experience.
And that brings us to Sunday’s gold-medal game. Spain is the team that has played like it’s under the greatest amount of pressure. Spain is the two-time reigning European champ. Spain is the No. 2 team in the FIBA World Rankings. Spain was the silver medalist in 2008 in Beijing. Silver here in London is acceptable; but losing to anybody other than the U.S. is not.
But now that they can presumably play freely Sunday, maybe Pau and Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka and Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro and Jose Calderon can do something special, which most of the basketball world would find unthinkable. Asked what’s different about this team from the one the U.S. beat by 11 in the gold-medal game in Beijing, Bryant said, “Marc Gasol. His confidence has improved so much. His skill level has improved so much from when we last played them. That’s a major difference.”
Indeed, Marc Gasol and Ibaka were young pups then, but have been through NBA playoff wars now, and big international tournaments. The Spaniards, when they have the Gasols and Ibaka on the floor, have the second most talented front line in the world. But Ibaka was a non-factor against Russia Friday afternoon, putting up just two points and two rebounds in six minutes. Spain’s coach, Sergio Scariolo, is always stingy with minutes for Ibaka -- a pattern he might want to change Sunday if his team is going to have enough talent on the floor to get after the U.S. After all, Russia outscored Spain in the paint 24-18 Friday, which Ibaka can change all by himself.
The thing is, after listening to the U.S. players after they beat Argentina, you get the feeling that they are taking the Spaniards very, very seriously, as if the gold-medal game is a Game 7 in the NBA and they’re facing very capable, very formidable opponents … which indeed is the case. When a team featuring LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant takes anybody that seriously, even a Spain team that might feel like it is playing with proverbial house money, any result other than a U.S. victory would be nothing short of a stunner.
Instant Analysis: USA 109, Argentina 83
How it happened: In the teams' third meeting in the space of 17 days, Argentina was within seven points at the break thanks to a Manu Ginobili corner 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer. The United States' lead was down to as little as four points early in the third quarter.
Of greater concern for Team USA: Argentina had the pace where it was hoping to keep it, with the tournament's heavy favorite on track to be held under triple digits after ringing up a whopping 126 points when the teams met Monday night in the Group A finale.
Yet it took only one decent surge late in the third quarter, with LeBron James at the heart of it as usual and supplemented this time by Kevin Durant, for the United States to hike its lead to 17 by the start of the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter that followed was an avalanche, sending Team USA to Sunday's title game in far easier fashion than anticipated and consigning Argentina's Golden Generation to a bronze-medal game against Russia in perhaps the final major international tournament for the quartet of Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola, Carlos Delfino and Andres Nocioni.
What it means: The route to reunite these teams was on the circuitous side, but we've indeed got the gold-medal game we all expected back when the United States arrived on British soil in mid-July.
Spain certainly took the long way to get there, losing games to Russia and Brazil in pool play and falling behind by 13 points early in Friday's first semifinal against the Russians despite Andrei Kirilenko's struggles trying to play with an injured quad. But now it's on: Team USA against the Spaniards on Sunday afternoon in a rematch of the 2008 game for the gold in Beijing that the Americans didn't seize control of until the last few minutes of the fourth quarter.
Team USA is 8-1 against Spain since the introduction of the NBA players into FIBA events in 1992. And in both of Spain's trips to the Olympic final -- in 1984 and again in '08 -- it came away with silver after losing to the Americans both times.
Player of the game: Stop us if you've heard this one before.
LeBron James, anyone?
Kobe Bryant had 13 points in the first half, Carmelo Anthony uncorked one of his trademark Team USA scoring sprees with four 3s in the fourth quarter to finish with 18, while drained four 3s of his own in the third to finish with a team-high 19 for the Yanks.
But James' all-around play (18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists) and penchant for the big play at key times landed him here yet again.
"LeBron is just doing everything," Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Dirty work, clean work, leadership work. He kind of turned it up a notch in the second half and we all followed him."
Play of the game: Here's what Coach K is talking about ...
Using a screen on the left side of the floor from Kevin Love, LeBron rumbled right around the corner and into the paint faster than poor Delfino could react, bursting into the hole to rise up and hammer down a thunderous one-handed flush with 3:46 to go in the third.
When Durant soon followed with a couple of 3-pointers and James deftly guided home the rebound of Durant's errant 3 for a tip-in bucket, Team USA was on the way to a lead that would reach 25 less than two minutes into the fourth quarter.
And the rout was on.
By the numbers: In the 49th consecutive victory for the United States in international play, James' 18 points took him within two points of Michael Jordan for second place all-time among U.S. Olympians.