Utah Jazz: U.S. routs Germany, moves into quarterfinals
Dwight Howard shot 9-of-10 from the floor and finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Americans to their 5-0 pool finish as the U.S. goes into Wednesday's quarterfinals as one of the two top seeds.
LeBron James added 18 and Kobe Bryant 13, with five U.S. players finishing in double figures.
Deron Williams scored 9 and added five assists, four rebounds and two steals, while Carlos Boozer contributed six points, six rebounds and a steal.
Dirk Nowitzki's 14 points paced Germany (1-4), which will not advance to the quarterfinals.
In the quarterfinals, the U.S. will face the Andrew Bogut-led Australian team, which went 3-2 in Group A.
"Nobody is going to beat them. No way, it's just not going to happen," Germany's Chris Kaman said.
Not since the Dream Team rumbled through Las Ramblas 16 years ago in Barcelona has a team been this dominant. The Americans won their pool games by 32.2 points and averaged 103 points. "We feel like we're playing very well right now, but you have to keep in mind it's single elimination," Kobe Bryant said. "You can't afford any slip-ups."
The Americans scored 3 seconds into the game when Howard batted the tip to James, who threw it ahead to Carmelo Anthony for a layup. That was the start of eight straight U.S. points, and the end of any suspense.
Germany missed nine of its first 10 shots, including a blown dunk and a botched putback by Los Angeles Clippers center Kaman. Bryant missed a dunk, too, during that stretch, but Howard and James had consecutive slams to make it 18-3.
"Going against Greece and going against Spain, it was really easy to get up for," James said. "And we could have easily came in and had one of those games where we make excuses, but we didn't take a step backwards today and that was good, it was really good."
The Americans were scoring so easily, they practically got in each other's way. Chris Paul led a 3-on-1 break and threw an alley-oop that could have gone to either James or Dwyane Wade. James jumped higher and got it to lay it in, then stepped outside to hit his second 3 for a 23-5 bulge.
Up 19 after one, the U.S. scored the first eight points of the second to make it 39-12. The lead was 28 after James drilled 3-pointers on consecutive U.S. possessions, and ballooned to 30 for the first time when Howard scored four straight to make it 49-19 with 3 minutes left in the half.
Bryant hit the side of the rim on another slam attempt early in the third quarter, so he backed up 20 feet and tossed in back-to-back 3s for a 62-29 cushion. Howard slammed down an alley-oop from Wade right after Nowitzki checked out, turning into an 80-39 bulge with 2:41 remaining in the period.
E-mail: taylor@desnews.com
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