The dream is still alive, for the U.S. men's basketball team.

The heavily favored American hoopsters -- referred to, like past Olympic squads, as the Dream Team -- used a balanced effort Friday night to defeat Argentina 109-83 and advance to Sunday's final.

Kevin Durant, the reigning NBA scoring champ from the Oklahoma City Thunder, led all players with 19 points. He was followed closely by the Miami Heat's LeBron James, the three-time NBA MVP who chipped in with 18 points, seven assists and seven rebounds.

The Argentina squad is no slouch, boasting NBA stalwarts Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola and Carlos Delfino. But they were no match for the U.S. team, which was ahead five points after the first quarter and steadily pulled away thereafter.

They'll vie for Olympic gold Sunday against Spain, led by Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers. In their semifinal match-up Friday, Spain trailed Russia 31-20 at the half and pulled to a 46-46 tie after three quarters, then ran away with the game late to win by 67-59.

The U.S. men won't be alone in trying to stand atop the Olympic podium this weekend. The American women's basketball team has already made it through to the gold-medal final, which they'll play against France on Saturday.

In Olympic Stadium, meanwhile, America's top female sprinters outpaced their Jamaican competitors to earn gold in the prestigious 4 x 100-meter relay -- though their long dominant countrymen fell just short in the 4 X 400-meter men's race.

The Bahamas team of Chris Brown, Demetrius Pinder, Michael Mathieu and Ramon Miller won the latter event, rallying to pass the U.S. squad, which has had a stranglehold on this relay for decades, on the final lap. Trinidad and Tobago took home bronze.

The lineup for Team USA in the men's race changed after the semifinal, when Manteo Mitchell remarkably found a way to finish his opening leg after feeling his fibula breaks but continuing to run through the pain.

One man who made headlines in the race, without winning, was South Africa's Oscar Pistorius. Prior to running his nation's final leg of Friday's relay final, Pistorius -- who runs on special carbon fiber prosthetic limbs and was once prevented from competing against able-bodied athletes -- had made history as the first double amputee athlete to compete in the Olympics.