Team USA Basketball Crushes Serbia to Begin Olympic Campaign
Led by vintage performances from basketball greats Lebron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, Team USA easily bests Serbia in Olympic opener.
By Austin Gage | Contributing Sports Writer
Led by vintage performances from basketball greats Lebron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, Team USA easily bests Serbia in Olympic opener.
The United States began their 2024 Paris Olympic journey Sunday with an exclamation point as they dominated Serbia in a 110-84 victory.
Although Team USA escaped their five exhibition games before the beginning of these Olympic games without a loss, plenty of question marks surrounded a team that was heavily expected to dominate any competition thrown at them. Close calls against the likes of South Sudan and Germany caused many to question the validity of the star-studded team.
Stacked with all-NBA level talent at every position, the 2024 squad enters the tournament with perhaps the highest expectations for a United States basketball team since the famous 1992 “Dream Team” that was led by the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
The 2024 version of USA basketball is led by this generation’s version of NBA legends, headlined by arguably the greatest player of all time and current Los Angeles Laker Lebron James, the greatest shooter of all time and current Golden State Warrior Steph Curry and the greatest all-around offensive talent of all time and current Phoenix Sun Kevin Durant.
The United States, gold medalists in basketball in the past 4 Olympic games, composes a team mixed with veteran experience and young blood. 7 players have won at least one gold medal while another 5 are making their Olympic debuts.
However, Serbia did not lay down, at least to start the game. Led by three-time NBA MVP center Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets, they raced to a 10-2 lead early in the first quarter. Jokic would end the game with 20 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists to go along with 4 steals.
Ignited by a tough three-pointer by Curry, the Stars and Stripes began to erase the early deficit. In his Olympic debut, Curry went on to finish with 11 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists along with 3 memorable three-pointers. One of those memorable long-range triples would conclude the game as Curry hit his famous “look away” celebration as the ball passed through the net.
As the United States eventually fought out of the early hole they found themselves in, it became clear who the hero of the night would be: Durant. The nicknamed “Slim Reaper”, who came off the bench for this Olympic opener due to a nagging injury that he rested during the Americans’ exhibition games, shot perfectly from the field in the first half. He would enter the locker room at halftime with 21 points on 8 for 8 shooting from the field as the USA sat with a 9-point lead. Durant totaled 23 points overall on five three-pointers, including a fading-midrange jump shot off an inbound pass as the second-quarter buzzer sounded.
Not to be outdone by his longtime rivals and now teammates, James also rose to the occasion. James, who represented the entire country along with tennis star Coco Gauff as flag bearers in Friday’s opening ceremony, produced memorable moments of his own. Playing as the primary ball-handler and distributor, James displayed exceptional passing ability as he ended with 9 assists, including a beautiful feed to find Celtics guard Jrue Holiday, who himself had a great game with 15 points and a big three-pointer to end an 8-0 Serbia run in the fourth quarter. Along with that, James added 21 points and 7 rebounds on 9 for 13 shooting from the field: an all-around domination from the “King”.
Other key contributors for the United States included Laker forward Anthony Davis, Sun guard Devin Booker and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ young guard Anthony Edwards.
Davis, who found himself on the receiving end of an alley-oop from NBA and now USA teammate James in the third quarter, finished his night in Paris with 7 points and 8 rebounds. The Laker big man finds himself as one of the defensive anchors on the American squad.
As the fourth quarter winded down, Booker hit a three-pointer of his own to push the USA lead to 17 with just over three minutes to go, all but ensuring an American victory. Booker, as he does so commonly in the NBA, finished with an efficient shooting night with a 4 for 5 outing from downtown; he finished with 12 points to go along with 5 assists.
The 22-year-old Edwards did not shine away from the bright Olympic lights in his debut, totaling 11 points and 5 rebounds to go with his two three-pointers. As the youngest player on the team, Edwards will surely be the face of American basketball as older players such as James, Curry and Durant finish their careers.
Although the big win answered many questions that seemed to linger in the exhibition matches, a different question emerged over the lack of playing time for one of America’s biggest stars: Celtics forward Jayson Tatum.
Tatum, who is a four-time All-NBA selection and a 2024 NBA Finals Champion, received zero minutes of play in the game against Serbia. Because of this, the United States’ 26-point victory did not seem to be as clear as it should have been.
“Jayson handled it really well, I talked to him today before the game that it may play out this way just with Kevin [Durant] coming back and the lineups that I wanted to get to,” head coach Steve Kerr said after the game. “But that will change, Jayson’s going to play, every game’s going to be different based on matchups. I felt like an idiot not playing him.”
Upcoming for the United States is a Wednesday date with South Sudan, a team that upset Puerto Rico in their opener, on July 31st at noon PDT.
