United States 95, Serbia 91.
All who saw this game will remember it for a long, long time; given the stakes and the players on the court, it was the most memorable Team USA basketball game since at least 2008. That’s especially true if the U.S. puts the cherry on the semifinal sundae by beating France in the men’s basketball gold-medal game Saturday.
There’s a lot to unpack, including some key decisions by both coaches, the potential last big hurrah of the NBA’s LeBron James–Stephen Curry era (it felt fitting that, on the same day the U.S. needed the old guard to come to the rescue, news broke that the NBA also asked them to rescue the Christmas day schedule from the NFL), the emergence of FIBA Joel Embiid and more.
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The 10,000-foot story of the U.S. in these Olympics, or really any FIBA men’s basketball competition, is that overwhelming talent isn’t necessarily a guarantor of success when the format is a single-elimination, 40-minute game. Anyone who has ever filled out an NCAA Tournament bracket has likely internalized this already.
While the talent gap is closing, it remains true that no national side could touch the U.S. in a best-of-seven series with 48-minute games. But in a one-and-done situation? Game on.
Between that and bridging the FIBA familiarity gap — something that, in particular, bedevils teams from the U.S. and Canada in these tournaments — there’s an “any given Sunday” aspect to these games despite Team USA’s history (the Americans have won seven of the eight gold medals since pros were allowed in the tournament and are heavily favored to make it eight of nine) and talent.
The way that manifests on the court hasn’t changed much from what I outlined earlier this summer: The U.S. consistently plays at a possession disadvantage by giving up more offensive boards and committing more turnovers than the opponent, and despite some incredible individual efforts, the Americans’ overall defense has been pretty average.
None of that has mattered yet, because the offense has been absolutely awesome. Like, bonkers, silly awesome. The U.S. is the only team in the field that has shot better than 50 percent from the field — and it’s at 55.7 percent. That includes 41.4 percent from beyond the arc, on enough volume to lap the other medal contenders in made 3s.
Thus, the outlines of a potential upset were there: If a team could slow the pace, win the possession battle by a decent-sized margin, have some outlier shooting of its own and catch the U.S. on an off night … maybe, just maybe, it could still lead at the end of 40 minutes.
All those elements of the formula pretty much held against Serbia — itself the second-highest scoring team in the tournament. The U.S. had a whopping nine-possession disadvantage thanks to committing five more turnovers and giving up four more offensive rebounds. (Embiid, in an otherwise tremendous performance, was beaten three times to second shots in the fourth quarter by Nikola Milutinov.)
Those nine possessions loom even bigger than in an NBA game, because FIBA games are 40 minutes rather than 48, and because Serbia slowed the pace much more effectively than other American opponents: The U.S. only had 72 possessions instead of the usual tally into the 80s.
Meanwhile, Serbia got four first-half 3s from defensive specialist Aleksa Avramović — doubling his total from the rest of the tournament — and hung a big fat 54 on the scoreboard in the first half. At the other end, Serbia’s “bend-but-don’t-break” approach resulted in an early Curry hailstorm from outside, but at the end of the first quarter, the mighty U.S. had zero paint points and an eight-point deficit. Even late in the third, Serbia was up 15 when Marko Gudurić — yes, Grizzlies fans, that Marko Gudurić — got a four-point play off the dribble:
FOUR POINT PLAY for Serbia. 👀 Marko Guduric extends the lead to 15.#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC, USA Network and Peacock pic.twitter.com/YVwC0rHvGm
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024
And then the fourth quarter happened. Serbia scored just 10 points in the first nine minutes and missed all nine of its 3-point attempts in the final stanza, including a few wide-open ones.
Yes, the U.S. dialed up its defensive pressure as well, with Kevin Durant notably picking up small guards full-court the entire quarter and forcing a key backcourt violation from Bogdan Bogdanović. (Durant had a rough first half, but his massive involvement in the fourth-quarter comeback made this a full-blown gimme back that torch moment from the graying Curry-James-Durant triumvirate, who between them may have very few games left in their careers of this magnitude.) Overall, however, this was not a good defensive game from the U.S.: Serbia scored 91 points on 74 trips, and that should have been more than enough to win.
GO DEEPER
Team USA, with Olympic hopes teetering, turned to an unlikely place — defense
Alas, the U.S. shot making was there to bail the Americans out. The Serbians are going to lament some missed chances — they waited too long to foul at the end, they gave up a free point on a technical foul and a killer six-point possession in the fourth, and that backcourt violation out of a timeout was a backbreaker.
But … I don’t know what you do about a shot chart like this:
The U.S. made nine of its 12 jump shots in the fourth, including six of seven in the “tough 2” range. They got two late runouts off Serbia mistakes, but otherwise, Serbia’s game plan to make the U.S. beat it from the perimeter pretty much held all night. The U.S. just … beat it. The Americans scored 28 points in the last seven and a half minutes, including one eight-possession stretch where they scored 20 points.
Thus, even on a night where they weren’t at their best, the Americans ended up with a stat line of 57.4 percent shooting, including 65.5 percent from 2 and 50 percent from 3, and scored more than 1.3 points per possession in a tournament where 1.1 is a good night. (France won the other semifinal with 1.04, for instance.) It’s a cheat code no opponent has found a way to answer, and it’s likely to result in a gold medal Saturday.
Ah, yes, there still is one game left: against France on Saturday. Un moment, sil vous plais. Before we tackle that game, a couple of other things to get off my chest:
The play that changed everything
The biggest play of the game, by far, was the six-point possession for the U.S. in the middle of the fourth quarter. Durant hit a 3-pointer at the same time Nikola Jokić trucked Anthony Davis. In the NBA, that would have resulted in Davis going to the line for one shot, but by FIBA rules, the U.S. got the 3 and got to inbound the ball again.
Making matters, worse, Serbia completely fell asleep on the inbound and gave Devin Booker a wide-open 3, likely because it was so worried about Curry getting free.
Team USA pulls within FIVE. We got a game at Bercy Arena.
📺 USA Network and Peacock | #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/mGrkXZ8PNu
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024
The sequence cut an 11-point lead to five with over seven minutes remaining. From there, Serbia seemed to grow visibly tighter.
Joker’s one weakness (sorta)
Jokić is an incredible shot maker inside the arc, but those powers become more ordinary when he’s asked to shoot 3s.
Despite respectable numbers (35.9 percent last year, 35.0 percent career), he has never been totally comfortable from distance and at various points in the last few years has abandoned the shot entirely. Even from the shorter FIBA distance, it’s a rough slog for him: He went 0-of-6 from 3 against the U.S. and is just 2-of-16 from distance in the tournament, with a bronze-medal game against Germany still to come.
Steve Kerr’s patience
Kerr’s bets paid off in a big way. He stayed with Curry and Embiid despite their early struggles in the tournament, and he and USA Basketball stuck with Durant despite a lingering calf problem that took him out of all the early prep games. Those three and James essentially won the game against Serbia.
Curry entered the game 12th out of 12 U.S. players in PER in these Olympics, at a meager 7.6, and hadn’t been much better in the exhibitions leading up to the Games. All he did Thursday was score 36 points on 19 shots and grab eight rebounds (!), hitting the go-ahead basket and the game-icing free throws.
Embiid, meanwhile, was an example of the FIBA learning curve in action; he was shockingly bad in the first tune-up game against Canada and improved only slowly from there in the next couple. But on Thursday, he scored seven points in a key three-possession sequence of the fourth, scored 19 points overall while matching up with Jokić and finished the night a tidy plus-15 in 26 minutes. Much of his best stuff came mano a mano against The Joker.
“YOU WANNA SEE HOW A GROWN MAN DUNKS?”- @DwyaneWade
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) August 8, 2024
More notably, let’s shout out Embiid for this road-grader screen he set on Curry’s go-ahead 3. I don’t think the U.S. wins this game if he were suiting up for France.
STEPHEN. CURRY. TEAM USA LEADS.#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC, USA Network and Peacock pic.twitter.com/C4MUUl1v78
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024
The circle of trust
We know who the go-to guys in the gold-medal game are now, especially after the U.S. second unit that had played so well all tournament put up a stink bomb against Serbia. One wonders if Kerr will start Durant in the finale to go with his preferred quartet of Curry, Embiid, Booker and James, or if Jrue Holiday will get the call again. But rest assured, Durant will be there at the end.
After that come tough choices. Anthony Edwards and Anthony Davis are sure to get some extended run, as they’ve generally been excellent this summer. Derrick White and Bam Adebayo are game-flow decisions who are more likely in the first half. Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton? They seem like strictly break-glass options at this point.
On to France
France looked awful in the tune-up games leading into the Olympics and wasn’t any better in pool play, lucking into a weak group and still needing a miracle four-point play to top Japan.
Then coach Vincent Collet changed his lineup, turning NBA players Rudy Gobert and Bilal Coulibaly into bystanders, moving Evan Fournier to the bench and elevating European-based players Guerschon Yabusele, Matthias Lessort, Andrew Albicy and Isaïa Cordinier. They responded with two tremendous efforts in front of a raucous home crowd and knocked out Canada and Germany to earn a shot at the gold, with Cordinier in particular having arguably the best two-game stretch of his career.
GO DEEPER
Wembanyama cements win as France advances to gold medal game
France’s size and defensive chops are legit; even with Gobert hardly playing, the French are a big, athletic team, and Victor Wembanyama’s length can blot out the sun. On the other hand, France has gotten a lot of mileage from posting up Lessort and Yabusele against smaller players after switches, especially against Canada, and I just don’t think that will work against the U.S.’s bigger and/or meatier (hello, Mr. Holiday) perimeter players.
Also, France’s guards aren’t good, and the U.S. should be able to dial up the pressure enough on players like Albicy and Frank Ntilikina to force mistakes.
The U.S. beat France in the gold-medal game in Tokyo in 2021 behind 29 points from Durant and, get this, 19 in 21 minutes from Tatum off the bench. With a stronger team in this edition and the French side, despite adding Wembanyama, looking weaker than it did three years ago, I’d expect a slightly more comfortable win for the Americans.
France doesn’t have the offensive arsenal Serbia did, but this is FIBA and it’s single elimination; things can get weird.
Required Reading
(Photo of Kevin Durant: Aris Messinis / AFP via Getty Images)
