Steph Curry’s long-awaited sensational performance Thursday at Bercy Arena propelled Team USA to an unbelievably epic 95-91 comeback win over Serbia and a berth in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics men's basketball gold medal game, in which the Americans will play France on Saturday.
Curry, the Warriors star in his first Olympics, came out of the gates on absolute fire and couldn’t be extinguished by Serbia’s defense, which did make Team USA sweat for 40 minutes. Curry scored 36 points on 12-of-19 shooting, made nine 3-pointers and grabbed eight rebounds in 33 minutes.
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Curry had scored 29 total points through four games entering the semifinals for an average of just 7.3 points.
When Team USA needed a hero, though, Curry answered the call. His 3-pointer with two-plus minutes remaining gave the Americans the lead, and they never looked back, outscoring Serbia 32-15 in the fourth quarter.
LeBron James gave Team USA a triple-double of 16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, and Joel Embiid added 19 huge points on 8-of-11 shooting.
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Team USA trailed by as much as 17 points, and its largest lead before the fourth quarter was two.
Here are the three takeaways from Team USA’s fourth-quarter push into the championship game against the Olympics’ host team.
The Steph show finally arrives
The wait was worth it.
Steve Kerr -- Curry's coach on the Warriors and Team USA -- primarily deployed his star guard as a third option, using his gravity as the greatest shooter of all time to give his teammates open looks in the first four games of the Olympics.
Kerr didn’t waste any time in unlocking Curry this time, though. A Curry jumper opened the scoring and was just a glimpse into what was to come.
As Serbia used an array of scorers, Curry was the lone American to provide points early in the game. Three-plus minutes in, Curry was responsible for 14 of Team USA’s first 15 points after he had scored just seven in the entire game two days ago. His 17 first-quarter points Thursday were his most in any game, let alone a quarter, during the Olympics.
Curry had made five total 3-pointers in the first four games -- and then exploded for five in the first quarter against Serbia. But Team USA trailed by eight points after the first 10 minutes.
By halftime, with Team USA trailing by 11, Curry was up to 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting -- 6 of 9 from 3-point range. His teammates accounted for just 23 points on 8-of-21 shooting and made three 3-pointers on 10 attempts.
Curry’s 16 second-half points became more important with each bucket, giving him one of the greatest games in Team USA Olympics history.
The Big Three
And that’s what happens when Curry, James and Kevin Durant all are on the court for the same team.
Kerr finally put the three faces of a basketball generation on the court together to begin the fourth quarter, and they carried the torch down the stretch. James (39), Curry (36) and Durant (35) played the entire quarter, and in the clutch, those three gave Team USA the win.
Team USA hadn’t failed to reach the gold medal game since James was a 19-year-old playing in his first Olympics all the way back in 2004, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again. Durant is the greatest American basketball player in USA history, and he showed why down the stretch.
After Durant went scoreless on one shot attempt in the first half, he scored seven of his eight points in the fourth quarter.
MVP vs. MVP
The two players who won the last four NBA MVP awards -- three for Jokić and one for Embiid -- went to battle for all four quarters. However, since the start of exhibition play, questions had been asked about Embiid’s conditioning and fit on Team USA.
He quieted his critics -- and outplayed Jokić, too.
If it weren’t for Jokić getting into foul trouble and missing shots, the final score likely would have been in Serbia’s favor.
As he always does, Jokić stuffed the stat sheet with 17 points and 11 assists. But he also converted just seven on his 17 shot attempts and missed all six of his 3-point attempts. On the other side, Embiid missed just three shot attempts and made two of his three tries beyond the arc.
While Embiid was plus-15 in 27 minutes, Jokic was minus-10 in 38 minutes. This one went to The Process over The Joker.
Get ready for non-stop loud boos to Embiid, who chose to play for Team USA over France, when the squads meet in the gold medal game.