The United States was on the verge of experiencing one of the biggest upsets in the history of Paris 2024. The US team defeated Serbia 95-91 and qualified for the basketball final.
Stephen Curry wants his gold medal. The NBA legend, making his Olympic debut, scored 36 points in the United States’s comeback win over Serbia (95-91) on Thursday in Paris, and will meet France on Saturday in the final match of the men’s Olympic basketball tournament.
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The United States will play for its fifth consecutive medal against the host country, which beat world champion Germany (73-69).
The self-proclaimed Avengers reunited after finishing fourth at the 2023 World Cup on the initiative of LeBron James, had easily won their four previous games in Paris-2024, including the first of the tournament against Serbia itself (110-84).
But the Balkan team learned from its mistakes to come close to winning what would have been its first victory over the United States at the Games since the semi-finals in Athens in 2004 when Argentina won. Since then, only victories and gold medals have been achieved.
Serbia was once again led by Nikola Jokic with 17 points and 11 assists, along with captain Bogdan Bogdanovic, who added 20.
The United States had started with Curry’s best minutes of the tournament, the protagonist of one of those streaks that have made him a legend, 14 points with four three-pointers in four minutes.
The good news for Serbia was that they survived without a single scratch. Better still, they did so without Jokic getting hot, to lead by eight at the end of the first quarter (31-23).
With the lead stretched to 16 points, their chances of pulling off a big upset lay in maintaining their high success rate – 10/19 on three-pointers at half-time – and the defensive trap that the NBA stars had fallen into.
On the American bench, Steve Kerr was looking for solutions with his prestigious assistants, Erik Spoelstra and Tyronn Lue. Meanwhile, Jokic finally entered the game with a block on LeBron and a 2+1.
One of the big surprises was Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton who did not see any minutes in the entire game.
LeBron completes the comeback
The King, who wore a band-aid around his left eye from a blow he suffered in the quarterfinals, began to get going, helped by Curry, who maintained his streak to leave the deficit at 11 points at half-time (54-43).
In the second half, the Golden State Warriors point guard kept his team alive, but Serbia had many more arguments, with a line of outside players that was suffocating in defense and lethal in attack to take a 13-point lead before the final quarter after a three-pointer with an additional free throw by Marko Guduric.
However, the United States managed to turn the situation around, led by LeBron (16 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists), who scored a drive that tied the game with three minutes to play. Between him and Curry they gave Serbia the final blow.
