When coach Barry Barnes was invited to bring his Australian National Basketball Team to Salt Lake City to play the Dream Team, he jumped at the chance.

Which is sort of like jumping at a chance to stand in front of a speeding train."We came and we got what we wanted," Barnes said after another routine Dream Team victory, 118-77, Friday night at the sold-out Delta Center. "I was very pleased at the endeavor my players put in."

Barnes' team did play hard. But this contest had all the suspense of seeing a mouse dropped into a snake tank. There was no question whether the mouse would be eaten, only of when the snake would get hungry.

USA assistant coach Jerry Sloan said - and who around here hasn't heard this before - that despite the 41-point margin of victory, the Dream Teamers didn't play all that well.

"It appears to me that we are coming out to outscore people instead of starting on the defensive end of the floor," he said. "They're making adjustments and they'll be even better in a couple weeks. They'll have to be."

"We didn't play well, we didn't play our best game, but we're getting there," said Jazz forward Karl Malone. "It's good to have these games to warm up."

The Dream Teamers did look tentative and a little sloppy. But chances are they could keep playing like this and roll right on through to another gold medal. They are, after all, the greatest assemblage of basketball talent on the planet.

The Australians, though, deserve credit, for not being in awe of the Dream Team. Or at least for not letting that keep them from being willing to push and bump and bang with the world's best.

"They really didn't care who we are," Jazz guard John Stockton said. "I admire them for that."

"We came here expecting to play the best players in the world, but we weren't going to back down," said Aussie guard Shane Heal.

On looks alone, Heal looked like a candidate for some serious backing down. At 6-1, 180 pounds, with a blond surfer 'do and the face of a 16-year-old, he looks like he ought to be on a beach somewhere, contemplating some serious waves, dude. But he knocked down eight three-pointers and led his team in scoring with 28, and he still found time to get into a chest-bumping encounter with Charles Barkley, which, Stockton noted, "probably wasn't the wisest thing he's ever done."

The incident occurred in the first half; Heal was shooting a three when Barkley put him on the floor. As everyone else raced to the other end of the court, Heal jumped up and - according to Barkley and other witnesses - called the soon-to-be-ex-Phoenix Sun an unsavory name. Moments later, as the teams left the floor for a timeout, Barkley and Heal met at halfcourt to exchange more pleasantries, and Barkley grabbed a fistful of Heal's jersey.

"Obviously he doesn't realize who I am, that I'm not going to take that from him," Barkley said.

Barkley wasn't the only Dream Teamer to get into it with an opponent. Gary Payton also had words with Heal, and Malone was the game-leader in staredowns, with three (by unofficial count), and elicited a double foul for a little face-off with Australia's Andrew Vlahov.

"We're not being bullies," Barkley said. "We're just not taking crap from anybody. Me and Karl aren't going to back down. We're from the South. We're not like those wimpy guys from the North."

Asked if he was tempted to pop Heal, Barkley said (referring to his series of bar-fight incidents), "I wasn't going to hit him. I don't hit people unless it's late at night."

As in the Dream Team's other games, the glaring difference between them and the rest of the world is in overall athleticism - speed, jumping ability, things like that. The Aussies passed the ball decently and tried to block out on the boards and were well-disciplined, but ultimately they just couldn't play at the same pace.

The USA also held a huge advantage inside. The Australians have three players in the 6-10 to 7-foot range, but nothing to compare with David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon. The Dream Team outscored the Aussies 70-24 in the paint, 29 of those points coming off the fast break.

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"Their (the USA's) size, their passing and their ability to fill the lanes left us standing around a lot," Barnes noted.

Seven Dream Teamers scored in double figures, led by Reggie Miller, who was six for six from the floor, with 19 points, and O'Neal, with 18. Malone scored 14; Stockton had five points, five assists.

USA next plays the Greek Olympic Team on Sunday in Indianapolis.

Don't expect an upset.

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