Personally, when the Olympics come around every 4 years, I turn into a little kid again. It is my absolute favorite sporting event in the world. You truly get it all with the Olympics: not just every sport in the book, but you get the raw competitiveness and the carnal will-to-win from the thousands of athletes participating from across the world as well.
Paris, France, the host city for the 2024 Olympic Games.
At the time this is being written, the United States hold a commanding 103-74 lead over China in total medals — gold, silver, and bronze. However, in terms of just the gold medal count, the United States and China are in a deadlock: tied 30-30 in golds.
While superstar USA athletes such as Simone Biles & the ‘Golden Girls’, Katie Ledecky, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, as well as track stars Fred Kerley and, of course, Noah Lyles have all won gold… it just feels as if they’ve left a bit of meat on the bone as well, at least to me.
Simone Biles, Suni Lee & the self-nicknamed 'Golden Girls' -- an appropriate nickname following their gold medal win in the Gymnastics team final, becoming the oldest group on-average to take home gold. PHOTO CREDIT: AP.
The aforementioned Noah Lyles must agree with me on that front, because his asinine decision to go forth with running the Men’s 200m Final on Thursday after testing positive for COVID-19 while also having asthma was equal parts reckless and dumb. It almost put a damper on his historic gold medal victory in the Men’s 100m on Sunday, which was decided by one of the more insane photo finishes in racing history.
Noah Lyles' torso lean was the difference in his narrow, five-thousandths-of-a-second victory over Jamaican Kishane Thompson in the Men's 100m final. PHOTO CREDIT: AGUSTIN MARCARIAN/REUTERS.
Speaking of Lyles, his comments a year ago on “NBA champions not being world champions” caused quite the firestorm that still burns up many of the NBA’s American stars to this day.
Devin Booker, who is one of the leading stars on this year’s Team USA hoops squad, made recent comment on Lyles’ words, saying that he still doesn’t agree with Lyles' premise.
And that brings us to this year’s Olympic basketball tournament.
The 2024 Olympic Basketball Men’s team is one of the most stacked we’ve ever seen.
The reason being? Team USA Basketball’s bitter failures since the 2021 Olympics, most notably their flop in last year’s FIBA World Cup with their “B-team” roster — a failure of which I wrote about here.
That defeat left such a sour taste in USA Basketball’s mouth that they had to call in ‘The Avengers’ this time around:
With the old guard: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry, who is playing in his first ever Olympics at the ripe age of 36;
the established vets: Booker, Joel Embiid, Bam Adebayo, and Anthony Davis;
the NBA champion Celtics teammates Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Jayson Tatum;
and the young heir Anthony Edwards, this collection of talent has been vaulted up in conversations with some of the greatest Team USA squads ever assembled — the Kobe/LeBron/KD-led 2012 superteam, the 2008 ‘Redeem Team’, and the 1992 ‘Dream Team’.
Despite this, Team USA endured an uneven 5-game stretch in their “showcase games”, which included a shockingly close 101-100 win over South Sudan, requiring a LeBron go-ahead layup and an Anthony Davis defensive stop as time expired to narrowly escape embarrassment.
Once ‘LeFlagBearer’ and the rest of the squad arrived to Paris to kick off the official tournament, though? They quickly re-established their dominance.
Lead us, Captain LeAmerica. PHOTO CREDIT: SINA SCHULDT/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY.
Team USA kicked off the tourney by winning their group stage games by an average of over 21 points; the first of which being a 110-84 victory over Nikola Jokić & Serbia in the tournament’s opening game. It was Team USA’s second blowout victory over the Serbs if you include their 105-79 drubbing in the Showcase.
Team USA also got a minor measure of revenge vs South Sudan, winning Round 2 of their head-to-head by 17 points.
Team USA continued their preeminence into the elimination stage with a 122-87 victory over Brazil in the quarterfinals, making it 4 straight wins in Paris with an average victory margin of approximately 25 points. Cruise control. Team USA had looked so sterling and so sharp to this point that the only real “controversy” to emerge from their camp was the uneven playing time that stars Jayson Tatum & Joel Embiid had been receiving: each player received a ‘DNP — Coach’s Decision’ within Team USA’s first four Olympic games.
Now, to the matters of what took place on Thursday afternoon.
Team USA’s advance to the semifinal round meant Round 3 vs Jokić, Bogdan Bogdanović, and the Serbian squad. With the first two matchups culminating in two USA blowouts, it wouldn’t have beyond the pale to expect a third. But there were some people, like ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst, that speculated that Serbia may have been holding certain strategies and game-planning back in their first two games vs USA in anticipation of letting it all hang out in a win-or-go-home medal round match.
The game tipped off, and both teams were incedeniary offensively to start.
Well, to be exact: Steph Curry was the lone statesman scorching the nets for the good guys.
Curry, who had been mired in a major struggle since arriving to Paris, quickly reversed his fortune in the first quarter, dropping 17 points in the opening period. He scored 14 of the first 15 points for Team USA, and, in typical Steph fashion, this ‘Curry Flurry’ included one of his patented no-look threes — his 4th of 5 total made threes in the first.
Team USA's bench loses it following Steph Curry's no-look make of his 4th three in the 1st quarter alone of Thursday's Semifinal game. PHOTO CREDIT: ARIS MESSINIS.
Usually, a stretch such as that one would quickly demoralize & bury the opponent. But it was the mentally tough & battle-tested Serbians that held a 31-23 advantage after the first quarter.
The beauty of the Olympic basketball medal round is that, unlike the NBA, it’s not decided by a 7-game series. Every game matters, which means that every quarter matters, which means that every possession matters. A singular string of poor offensive & defensive possessions can make the difference between a gold medal run & an emptyhanded trip back home. Team USA’s sole mission this tournament was to avoid such a stretch of extended poor play.
But that’s exactly what took place following quarter one.
Midway through the second period, Serbia extended their lead to a commanding 13 points. With just under 4 minutes remaining in the second, Bogdanović came off a Jokic screen at the top of the key & railed a three to extend Serbia’s lead to a stunning 15 — immediately taunting (or paying homage to) former Team USA standout Carmelo Anthony courtside with Melo’s patented “three to the dome” celly.
A series of two different three-point plays for the Americans — another deep three for Steph and a tough ‘And-1’ for LeBron — cut the deficit to 11 points at halftime. Coach Steve Kerr and USA knew what they needed to do to stage a monumental comeback: make Serbia feel their defensive pressure & intensity throughout the remainder of the contest. Offense came too easily for Serbia in the first half, with three-pointers galore splashing through the nets, and with Jokić leading the charge in Serbia cutting, backdooring, and rim-running Team USA to oblivion.
The second half began with both teams exchanging body blows as it remained a double-digit advantage for Serbia. Steph Curry chipped in two more three-pointers midway through the 3rd to bring his game's total to 8 & keep USA in it, but a backbreaking foul from Derrick White on a Marko Guderić made three from the left wing led to a 4-point possession, making it a 15-point deficit entering the 4th for Team USA.
In an alternate universe, Marko Guderić's 4-point play would've proved to be the dagger for Serbia. PHOTO CREDIT: KYLE TERADA/USA TODAY SPORTS.
At this point, I’m thinking, just as I’m sure many Americans were thinking: this can’t be how it ends, right?
Since 2008’s Redeem Team, The USA had a stranglehold over the rest of the world in terms of basketball supremacy. After the FIBA World Cup collapse last summer, many were saying that the world had finally caught up to the United States. Hell, even Team USA coach Steve Kerr echoed those same sentiments immediately following USA’s loss to Canada in the Bronze Medal game last year in a statement that I still find asinine on its face.
That loss was the prevailing reason why this year’s USA squad felt the need to load up the roster with 8 MVP awards, 9 scoring titles, and 84 combined All-Star selections. And, despite all of that, they needed to collectively put together the 10-minute quarter of their lives to come back from 15 points down, survive, and advance to Saturday’s Gold Medal game.
USA started the 4th chipping away at the lead, slowly but surely.
A fall-away paint shot from LeBron cut Serbia’s lead down to 9.
After a Jokić and-1, Durant & Embiid contributed back-to-back midrangers to cut the deficit to 5 with 5:50 left.
Poor rebounding from Team USA (which was a trend throughout the entire match) led directly to a Jokić layup to push the Serbs’ lead back up to 7.
Joel Embiid came right back down the next two possessions for Team USA and scored 5 points in those two possessions: an and-1 bank shot from the left elbow, and then a fadeaway over his rival Jokić to make it a two-point game. 84-82, Serbia led with 4 minutes & 18 seconds remaining.
From that point forward? The Big 3 of not just this squad, but the three superstar talents that have defined this generation — LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry — conducted a MONSTROUS takeover to close the match out.
A lefty LeBron drive-and-finish knotted the match at 84-all.
After a two-pointer from the Serbians to answer, Steph Curry sprinted off a crushing Embiid screen and rattled in a LOUD three to give Team USA their first lead of the second half. 87-86.
Steph Curry beats his chest in celebration following his go-ahead three-pointer vs Serbia -- his ninth of the contest. PHOTO CREDIT: MARK J. TERRILL/AP.
Team USA then got a stop & got out in transition. LeBron, who remarkably led the ENTIRE NBA in fastbreak points at an incomprehensible 39 years of age this past season, was off to the races yet again here, and hit turbo on the way to a big-time reverse lay-in. 89-86, USA.
Team USA was on an absolute rampage at this point, and that continued with a keen anticapatory steal from Curry, as he jumped into the passing lane on a Bogdanović drive-and-kick and raced to the bucket for a layup to cap off an outstanding two-way sequence at a pivotal stage in the game. Team USA now held a 5 point lead; staging an incredible 20-point turnaround in just over 8 minutes of game time.
I made note of Serbia’s mental toughness earlier in this piece, and that continued to make itself known, as Bogdanović, who led his team with 20 on the night, converted a three-point play the old-fashioned way, driving the lane & taking it straight to the body of Embiid to cut the USA lead back down to 2 points.
Enter the Slim Reaper.
In one of the cooler Olympic moments in history, you could see Carmelo Anthony in the bottom of the video frame literally directing Team USA’s dagger possession. This possession resulted in a KD isolation at the top of the key — a harrowing sight for any defender. Durant went right into his toolkit and pulled out one of his patented moves: a left-to-right crossover into a “hesi pull-up jimbo” as he calls it. Splash. 4-pt USA lead.
PHOTO CREDIT: ARTURO HOLMES/GETTY IMAGES.
Steph Curry knocked down some clutch-time free throws to keep the game comfortably in hand, and moments later? The signature Olympic horns sounded, signaling the end to a heart-stopping close of this Semifinal match.
That’s right. LeBron, Kevin, and Steph scored the final 13 points for Team USA in a fashion that not even Shakespeare could have written up. I’m not even being dramatic in saying what I’m about to say, either: the images of the three first-ballot Hall-of-Fame legends emotionally embracing immediately following the victory brought just a couple of thug tears to my eyes. Nothing crazy.
Okay, maybe a little more than just some thug tears.
I could be wrong, but I really don't think we’ll see something quite like the close of Thursday’s game ever again. That was some real-life superhero sh*t. Whenever Curry, Durant, and James each put out their career documentaries after they’re done playing, this game will surely be at the forefront of each work. It hit different for me, personally: it was primarily these three that served as the reason why I fell so hard in love with the game of basketball.
At 36-years-old, Steph Curry vs Serbia: 39 pts & 9 three-pointers made. Both marks were 2nd-most all-time in Olympic basketball history to Carmelo Anthony's scintillating performance vs Nigeria in 2012.
At 39 years of age, LeBron James vs Serbia: 16 pts, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists -- only the 2nd-ever triple-double in Olympic basketball history, also done by... LeBron James, of course.
After such an emotional win, it’s natural to wonder just how quickly Team USA can get those emotions to settle and lock back into the task at hand. As the late, great Kobe Bryant once brilliantly put it, the job’s not finished.
Bron, Steph, KD & co. face perhaps an even more daunting task on Saturday, as they’ll now face off against phenom Victor Wembanyama and a seasoned France in the gold medal game. A France team, mind you, that literally has a whole home COUNTRY advantage in these 2024 Paris Olympics. Saturday will bring a rematch of 2021’s Gold Medal Basketball Match, which resulted in a narrow 87-82 victory for the Americans. Team USA will have to bring their best game to win, without question.
It’s not often that we’ve said this about Team USA Basketball on either the men’s or women’s side over the past two decades, but for the men on Saturday, the margin for error will be razor-thin; especially when you take into account that France has quite literally been prepping for this moment for the past 3 years. An upset victory for the Frenchmen in their home country would be an unprecedented feat, and they’ll have the crowd behind them the whole way (and I’m sure they’ll have some boos for their good friend Joel Embiid, too.)
You can call this sensationalism, but I’m just keeping it real. Saturday’s Gold Medal game will be one of epic proportion. It will bring a great sense of heroism to the winner and great consequence to the loser, especially Team USA should they fall short.
And if you truly love the game of basketball, your eyes should be glued to the TV for every second.
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