Kobe Bryant had 19 points to lead the United States to beat Russia 79-68 in an Olympic warm-up match in Shanghai on Sunday, the fourth consecutive victory for the US team.
Carmelo Anthony chipped in 17 points and seven rebounds while Dwayne Wade came out from bench to have 16 points, five rebounds and three steals for the US side.
Utah Jazz forward Andrey Kirilenko led Russia by 18 points, eight rebounds and four assists, while guard J.R. Holden contributed 17 points and seven rebounds.
The 21-point margin is the closest one in US four exhibition games as they beat Canada 120-65, Turkey 114-82 and Lithuania 120-84.
"This is not just a practice game. It's a real-life game. We did everything we could today, but the better team won it," Russia's head coach David Blatt said.
The US forced out 12 steals and capitalized them with 15 points on fastbreaks.
"The poor thing was we didn't take care of the ball well. Most of the turnovers came from forced steals. The US had better defence and they showed us the speed of the NBA matches. The other thing was we didn't shoot the ball well. If you got open shot when you face against the US, you'd better make it," American Blatt said.
"Russia is a tough team to defend. We didn't go easy on offence, but I'm happy that didn't have bad effect on our defence," US head coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
Wade led the US with 10 points in the first half when the US had eight steals for a 46-31 lead.
Russia clawed back as they kept on attacking US defence in the paint. Kirilenko led a 12-4 run to make it 61-51 in the third quarter.
Wade ran two fastbreaks and Michael Redd committed two 3-pointers in a row to extend the lead 71-51 at the end of the quarter.
LeBron James was fouled out in the fourth quarter with ten points and six rebounds, but the US still carried on to take a big win.
(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2008)