USA wins basketball worlds, 129-92 over Serbia

Kyrie Irving (L) of the US goes up for a basket past Serbia's Nenad Krstic (C) and Stefan Bircevic during their Basketball World Cup final game in Madrid, Sept 14, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

MADRID - With golden confetti raining on their heads and "Party in the USA" ringing in their ears, it must have been hard for the US basketball players to hear anything.

Doesn't matter. They had stopped listening long ago.

All the questions about their talent, the doubts about their ability, were put down as easily as their opponents.

"It kind of was, again, a smack to our face, saying the US was sending the B-team to go play in the World Cup," forward Kenneth Faried said. "Just because LeBron's not here, Kobe's not here, (Kevin) Durant's not here, doesn't mean anything. We can step up and win the gold, too. That's what we did tonight."

And just like every other game, the Americans did it easily.

Tournament MVP Kyrie Irving made all six of his 3-point attempts and scored 26 points, and the US repeated as world champion for the first time by crushing Serbia 129-92 on Sunday in the Basketball World Cup.

James Harden added 23 points for the Americans, who made 11 of 16 3-pointers in a sensational-shooting first half, adding one final romp to a tournament full of them.

This depleted team that was supposedly weak enough to lose was too good to be touched.

"Obviously we didn't have a very close game all tournament, but for that to happen we had to play hard for 40 minutes and not relax and not give any inch while we were out there," guard Stephen Curry said.

The Americans came in winning by 32.5 points per game and their closest victory in the tournament was by 21 points over Turkey. They thought they would get a tough game Sunday, but were simply too good to let that happen.

They finished at 58 percent from the field. They made 15 of 30 3-point attempts and had eight of their 12 players score in double figures.

"I think the results were dominant, but we had spurts of dominance in a lot of games," US coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "And we had tough games and then all of a sudden we'd have a spurt and it looked like we dominated. Tonight we had like about a 35-minute spurt."

The Americans were supposed to have All-Star forwards Durant, Kevin Love and Blake Griffin, who all informed USA Basketball not long before the tournament that they would be unavailable.

But Irving and Harden stuck around, and despite sending the youngest US team since NBA players debuted in 1992, the Americans remained as dominant as ever.

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