Yesterday afternoon the USA men’s Olympic basketball team took on Nikola Jokic and the Serbian national team in the tournament semifinal. All of Team USA came off sluggish except Steph Curry who exploded for 17 points in the first quarter. Despite Curry’s onslaught of three-pointers, the US found themselves in an early deficit.
Things went from bad to worse for Team USA in the second quarter as they went into halftime down 11. At one point the lead for Serbia ballooned to 17 and USA was forced to burn a timeout. That time out became a turning point for the US who went on a big run to end the third.
The comeback was led by Curry who had 36 points, went 9/14 from three, and grabbed 8 rebounds. LeBron James also turned up in the second half scoring most of his points and finishing the game with a triple-double.
After a back-and-forth fourth quarter, the dagger came on a pull-up jumper from Kevin Durant with 34 seconds to go allowing Team USA to squeak by and take the W, 95-91.
In a post-game interview, Durant downplayed his shot and gave credit to his teammates, especially Steph Curry. “One of the best games I’ve ever been a part of…guys just knew where each other were gonna be it was special. He [Curry] came and had the best night out of anybody the whole tournament…it was incredible”, he said.
Steph Curry also took time to talk to the media after finally getting out of his tournament-long slump. “I knew I had it, it was in there, it was just a matter of when. You work the same no matter if you get two shots, three shots, or something like tonight so I praise God I was able to just enjoy the moment”.
Curry and company will look to keep it rolling as they head to the gold medal game this Saturday at 3:30 p.m., streaming on Peacock.
