After Team USA Basketball obliterated the Chinese national team in an exhibition game in Los Angeles on Sunday, the current Dream Team gets to hammer China again on Tuesday — this time up the road in Oakland. It’s a court you’ve seen a lot lately if you’re an NBA fan: ESPN and the like showed more highlights from Oracle Arena last year than from anywhere else, as the Warriors won a record 73 regular season games. The Steph Curry show got as much free media as the Donald Trump show in early 2016.
[USA Basketball: Kevin Durant Takes Michael Jordan Role on New ‘Dream Team’]
Durant led the US team with 19 points in the first China game. The second game will feature Durant on his new home court, where the Bay Area is expected to greet him the way Jeremy Lin gets greeted on his summer Asian tours. That is, raucously, emphatically, gratefully. Durant will be playing his first game at Oracle since he and the Thunder lost Game 7 there in late May. It’ll be the first time he’ll play in Oakland as a member of the Warriors, though of course he’ll be playing for the national team, not Golden State. Look for Warriors fans in the crowd to try to give Draymond Green and Klay Thompson just as much applause as the new guy. And look for a blowout score similar to the first game (106-57) — and maybe similar to some of next year’s Golden State Warriors games.
