Dream Team Rolls Into Final -- Team USA Stops Puerto Rico

PORTLAND, Ore. - Team USA took advantage of its first chance to pay back the world for a five-year losing streak.

Playing for the first time against a team responsible for continuing the string of American defeats in international competition, the new-look U.S. basketball team routed Puerto Rico 119-81 behind Karl Malone's 22 points.

The U.S. again dominated every phase of the game last night, outshooting the Puerto Ricans 65.3 percent to 39.4, outrebounding them 49-29 and passing for 34 assists to 16 for Puerto Rico.

"The talent of our players seems to take over after about 10 minutes," Coach Chuck Daly said. "We didn't play with a lot of emotion and we didn't have as much intensity on defense in the second half as we could have. We haven't had quite the same enthusiasm we did early, but it hasn't been necessary."

Eleven of the 12 Puerto Ricans who played for the team that beat the U.S. 73-68 last summer in the Pan American Games semifinals were here for the rematch in the Tournament of the Americas.

But 11 NBA players are now on the American squad that qualified for the Olympics with four blowout victories. Only Christian Laettner was present for the 1991 defeat in Havana.

"I was surprised they didn't play with more emotion," Daly said of Puerto Rico. "Teams don't seem to compete as hard against us as they have against other teams. I don't quite understand why, but it seems to affect our intensity level as well."

Puerto Rico trailed by 38 points with 15 minutes to go, but played the Americans even, 42-42, the rest of the way.

It was too late to affect the outcome, but it enabled Puerto Rico to play the closest game against Team USA in the tournament. The Americans outscored Argentina 128-87.

Brazil, the team that started the American losing streak in 1987, lost to Venezuela 100-91 in the other tournament semifinal. All four of last night's semifinalists have qualified for the Olympics later this month in Barcelona.

The tournament final will be tomorrow.

Magic Johnson scored 16 points and Clyde Drexler 15 for Team USA. Scottie Pippen had 10 points, nine rebounds and 11 assists.

With Larry Bird sidelined with a sore back for the fourth consecutive game and John Stockton questionable for the Olympics because of a broken leg, the Americans again started slowly, leading just 10-8 five minutes into the game.

It was 14-8 when Malone replaced Charles Barkley after the latter was knocked to the floor into an end-zone camera, cutting the back of his head. Malone made the free throws, the first of his 16 points in the final 13:05 of a half that ended with Team USA ahead 61-34.

"I'm a little lightheaded but I'm OK," Barkley said. "The head is the best place for me to take a shot. You can't hurt that."

Malone, the NBA's No. 2 scorer behind Michael Jordan, has started one of the five games the United States has played so far.

"It's fine the way Chuck is handling the starting lineups," Malone said. "It's not a punishment when you don't start. We all have to put our pride aside. When Charles got hurt, it was up to me to go in. It's nothing heroic. We just do our job."

Chris Mullin, hitting better than 50 percent of his three-point attempts in the tournament, increased his team-leading three-point total to 13 in five games with two in the first half. Mullin scored all of his 12 points in the first 20 minutes.

Jose Ortiz, a former teammate of Malone and Stockton with the Utah Jazz, scored 18 points for Puerto Rico. Jerome Mincy, a former Alabama-Birmingham player who scored 22 points in last year's game in Havana, was held to three.

"Jose didn't get a lot of opportunities to play at Utah because he played my position, but I have to give him credit because his game is improving," Malone said.

"I used to guard him all the time in practice, and I tried to learn from him," Ortiz said. "We had already achieved our objective here of getting to Barcelona, so we were relaxed. We played hard, but it wasn't a war out there."

Daly again tried the two-center lineup to start the second half, and Patrick Ewing and David Robinson combined for 10 points in a 16-5 spurt that made the score 77-39 with 15 minutes left.

PUERTO RICO - Ortiz 5-13 7-9 18, Mincy 1-5 0-0 3, Rivas 3-8 1-4 7, Gause 2-6 3-3 8, Carter 1-4 5-5 8, Pellot 1-5 0-0 2, Colon 3-7 0-0 8, Morales 1-3 0-0 3, Cruz 2-6 1-2 6, Lopez 0-1 0-0 0, Casiano 6-10 0-0 12, Soto 3-3 0-0 6. Totals 28-71 17-23 81. UNITED STATES - Pippen 4-5 2-3 10, Barkley 3-6 2-2 8, Ewing 6-8 0-0 12, Jordan 4-9 2-2 10, Johnson 7-11 1-1 16, Robinson 4-6 0-0 8, Malone 8-11 6-7 22, Drexler 6-8 1-2 15, Mullin 4-6 2-4 12, Laettner 3-5 0-1 6. Totals 49-75 16-22 119. Halftime - United States 61, Puerto Rico 34. Three-point goals - Puerto Rico 8-27 (Colon 2-4), United States 5-13 (Drexler 2-2, Mullin 2-4). Rebounds - Puerto Rico 29 (Rivas 7), United States 49 (Pippen 9). Assists - Puerto Rico 16 (Carter 5), United States 34 (Pippen 11). Total fouls - Puerto Rico 18, United States 23. A - 12,888.

Lithuanians qualify -- ZARAGOZA, Spain - Arvidas Sabonis scored 28 points and Sarunas Marciulionis 20 as Lithuania qualified for the Olympics with a 90-73 win over Slovenia. Germany, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Slovenia, all 3-2, are battling for the other three Olympic berths from Europe.