U.S. men ready for rematch with Argentina

LONDON — Oh, great. You guys again.

The shot heard ‘round the arena took place when the U.S. played Argentina earlier this week, a confusing and appalling scene when Carmelo Anthony was, to select a local metaphor, punched in the crown jewels by Argentina’s backup point guard.

He rolled around the court for a while as teammates Tyson Chandler and Kevin Durant sniped at the 5-foot-10 guard, Chandler taking several menacing steps toward him before being restrained and Durant receiving a rare technical foul for, uh, being a tad vocal.

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Since parting is such sweet international sorrow — not really, though: Argentina’s offending guard, Facundo Campazzo, wasn’t very apologetic after the game — the teams meet again in an Olympic semifinal Friday at North Greenwich Arena.

The U.S. got there with a 119-86 quarterfinal victory Wednesday over Australia, jacking up 46 three-point shots (sure, why not?) as LeBron James piled up the first triple-double ever for a U.S. Olympic player (11 points, 14 rebounds, 12 assists).

Argentina doesn’t have a factory of NBA players, but it beat Brazil in the quarterfinals, 82-77, which meant one thing…rematch!

There won’t be as much of Campazzo on the court.

He started Monday’s preliminary (a 126-97 U.S. victory by the way) because incumbent Pablo Prigioni was sidelined by kidney stones. Prigioni, who recently signed with the New York Knicks, will start against the U.S.

Argentina has a top-flight NBA player (Manu Ginobili), another very good one (Luis Scola), a starter for the Milwaukee Bucks (Carlos Delfino) and an aging NBA rotation player (Andres Nocioni).

A few minutes after USA finished off Australia, Anthony was already discussing Argentina’s physical style.

“You just go out there and get ready to take them punches,” he said. “Not literally.”

Anthony wasn’t the only one involved the other night. Campazzo said he wouldn’t be apologizing to anybody because Chris Paul knocked the wind out of him earlier in the game with a forearm shot to the chest.

Paul, when asked, shot back, “Which time?”

Olé!

Sure, yeah, there’s also some on-court maintenance to address.

Kobe Bryant was a little light in the scoring column these Olympics before bursting through with a team-high 20 points in the quarterfinals, making six of 10 from three-point range.

He was then asked if his spree would “quell concerns back in the States” that his game was slipping. He laughed for about 10 seconds.

“Gosh, I hope not. Then where’s the fun?” he said.

Bryant averaged 9.4 points before Wednesday — sixth on the U.S. — and was scoreless in the first half against Australia. Then he made four three-pointers in 66 seconds after continual ribbing from Anthony to wake up.

“Somebody made him mad,” Durant said. “I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to turn it on. You see that all the time. That’s the first time we’ve seen it here. He got so upset. When he does that, he’s in another world.”

Spain, the silver medalist in 2008, will play Russia in the other semifinal.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

twitter.com/Mike_Bresnahan

Chicago Tribune staff writer K.C. Johnson contributed to this report.