Unselfish play continues to pay off for U.S.

SAPPORO, Japan – One day Carmelo Anthony leads the U.S. in scoring. The next game, it’s Dwyane Wade’s turn.

Wade scored 26 points Sunday night to lead the U.S. to a 121-90 rout of Yao Ming and China, the Americans’ second victory in as many games at the FIBA world championships.

Someone else may lead the way against Slovenia on Tuesday.

This is how the Americans were assembled. Unlike many teams in the world championships, they don’t have to rely on one or two stars to carry the scoring load.

“We have to be unselfish because of the caliber of players that we have,” captain LeBron James said. “There’s no reason for us to be selfish. Guys can make shots. Guys can make plays at any given moment of the game. I go out there to be unselfish and it kind of rubs off on everybody else. That’s the kind of team that we have.”

James averaged 31.4 points per game last year for Cleveland. He’s averaging 13 in the first two games here.

The Americans have averaged 116 points against lightweights Puerto Rico and China. And they haven’t relied on any single player.

Anthony scored a team-high 21 points in the opening 111-100 victory over Puerto Rico, and nine of the 11 Americans who played scored at least two baskets.

On Sunday night, Wade had 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting, and he didn’t even start.

“We’ve got 12 guys on this team who can make shots,” Anthony said.

It certainly looked like that Sunday night. The only players who didn’t score were Chris Bosh, who missed two shots, and Brad Miller, who didn’t shoot.

With so many options, it makes the Americans tough to stop. As Slovenia prepares its game plan, will it try to neutralize Anthony or Wade? Or will it focus on James, who has yet to put up the big numbers he’s capable of? But it can’t ignore Paul, who is 8-for-15 from the floor and is averaging 12 points.

“For one, you can’t key in on one player,” James said. “You’ve got to play team defense. You can’t just worry about a Dwyane Wade or a Carmelo Anthony or a big man like Dwight Howard or myself. You’ve got to try to key in on everybody and try to stop us, which is very hard to do.”

For many of the Americans, the team-first attitude represents a change from the NBA.

“There are a lot of individuals out there, especially on their respective NBA teams,” forward Elton Brand said. “So we’re trying to be a team out here and get assists and do the extra things.”