USA rout Russia 89-68 in Olympic warm-up

USA rout Russia 89-68 in Olympic warm-up

Team USA showed their strength Sunday as the world's top basketball team powered past European champion Russia 89-68 before an energised crowd in Shanghai in an Olympic Games warm-up match.

The US side, hoping to mesh an arsenal of NBA stars ahead of next week's Beijing Games, fully displayed their superior shooting skills while smothering the Russians with a stifling defence.

Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant led with 19 points, while Denver Nugget Carmelo Anthony scored 17 and Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat added 16.

Team USA jumped out to a 20-point lead early in the third quarter, with Bryant leading numerous drives to the basket that either resulted in him scoring or setting up an open shot for a teammate.

"In terms of my offence, it is just taking shots when they are there. We wanted to move the ball, and if the opportunity presents itself, we wanted to be aggressive and shoot the ball," Bryant said. "All the guys did a great job."

The US squad showed patience on offence throughout the game against a resilient Russian defence, which for the most part contained the US running attack but allowed the Americans to land seven of 13 three pointers.

Utah Jazz power forward Andrei Kirilenko scored 18 for the losers, while US-born point guard JR Holden chipped in 17.

In the fourth quarter, Team USA put a little seen line-up of LeBron James, Wade, Bryant, Anthony and Chris Paul on the floor.

James appeared to play centre while the other four looked to kick-start the running attack that helped the US knock off European heavyweights Lithuania 120-84 on Friday and Turkey 114-82 on Thursday in Maucau.

"We went to a small line-up for a few minutes where LeBron and Carmelo were our bigs, no one was a centre," US coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

Our players are ... players, that's the way I look at it," he said, refusing to say whether such a line-up would be used at the Olympics.

Team USA is vying to end an eight-year international drought stretching back to Sydney 2000, with embarrassing flops at Athens and two World Championships along the way.

At the Olympics, Team USA play China on August 10 to kick off a tough Group B that includes Spain, African champions Angola and European powers Greece and Germany.

Russia is in group A, with reigning Olympic champions Argentina, Lithuania, Croatia, Australia and Iran.