MACAU — Any team with Kobe Bryant and LeBron James in the lineup is going to score.
Sure enough, the United States had no problem doing so in the first quarter Thursday — but neither did Turkey. The Americans didn’t pull away until their offensive superstars decided to be defensive stoppers.
James scored 20 points and was a defensive force in his exhibition debut, helping the U.S. Olympic team overcome some early sloppy play to beat Turkey 114-82 in its first game in China.
James and Bryant both finished with five steals, leading a defensive effort that had 16 of them.
“We love defense as a team because we have a lot of guys who can get at it defensively, cause some havoc and make a lot of plays,” guard Dwyane Wade said.
James made them on both ends of the floor.
The NBA’s leading scorer was 8-of-9 from the field and finished with six rebounds, five steals and four assists in 23 minutes, sitting out the fourth quarter.
“I think he played excellently,” center Dwight Howard said. “He passed the ball well, played great defense, ran the lanes. He played like LeBron James.”
Carmelo Anthony added 17 points and Howard had some powerful dunks while finishing with 14 for the Americans, who shot 69.5 percent (41-of-59) from the field.
DOPING: With only one week to go before the Beijing Olympics, Russia suddenly has its own version of a BALCO doping scandal involving some of the track team’s biggest stars. After a 1½-year investigation, the IAAF provisionally suspended seven female Russian athletes Thursday, accusing them of tampering with their urine samples. The list includes Yelena Soboleva, a world record-holder and world champion middle-distance runner who was favored to win both the 800 and 1,500 meters at the Olympics. The seven athletes, many of them potential Olympic medalists, come from several disciplines, from middle-distance running to the hammer and discuss throw. The athletes could still compete at the Beijing Games if they were to get an emergency ruling lifting the provisional suspension.
There will be 4,500 doping tests for the Beijing Games, a 25 percent increase from the 2004 Athens Olympics. That includes 1,300 pre-competition tests and almost 800 blood tests. The lab is expected to administer about 400 tests for human growth hormone. There were no positive HGH tests in Athens, a drug that is difficult to detect because it passes out of the body quickly.
POLITICS: A bipartisan group of U.S. senators called for an Olympic truce in Darfur during the Beijing Olympics. The senators introduced a resolution that urges China to pressure trading partner Sudan to end the violence that has claimed an estimated 300,000 lives and displaced 2.7 million others. The resolution was welcomed by Team Darfur, a group of athletes urging Sudan and China to observe the truce, a tradition that dates to the ancient Olympics.
SOCCER: The German soccer club Werder Bremen will appeal to the highest court in international sports, looking to overturn a FIFA decision obligating teams to release players 23 and under for the Olympics. Bremen, the German team Schalke and FC Barcelona are trying to reverse the ruling set by soccer’s governing body Wednesday. Barcelona would lose Lionel Messi to Argentina for the Beijing Games, while Bremen’s Diego and Schalke’s Rafinha would play for Brazil. Other clubs have players they wanted to keep home, but haven’t taken action against FIFA.
TENNIS: Marcos Baghdatis, the 2006 Australian Open finalist, was ruled out of the Beijing Olympics because of a right wrist injury. Baghdatis will be out of action for at least four weeks and miss the U.S. Open, the Cyprus Tennis Federation said in a statement on its Web site.
Maria Sharapova will miss the Olympics because of a right shoulder injury. The three-time Grand Slam singles champion said on her Web site that an MRI exam and other medical tests showed she has two small tears in tendons in her shoulder.
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