VILLENEUVE-d’ASCQ, France — By the end of Team USA’s Olympic opener, Kevin Durant made clear he is healthy and makes the tournament’s most dangerous team even stronger.
Durant put on a show above even his lofty Olympic standards with 23 points, 21 in the first half, and made his first eight shots in the Americans’ 110-84 win Sunday over Serbia. LeBron James added 21 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. The U.S. unloaded 18 3-point field goals in the 40-minute contest.
As a group, this collection of ballyhooed American stars turned in their best game of the summer as James continued to play well below his age and a barrage of 3s rained down on the Serbians.
Durant, of course, has been great before in a USA jersey. He is the program’s all-time leading scorer, seeking an Olympic record fourth gold medal in men’s basketball. His last game for the Americans, in fact, was in the Tokyo gold medal game, where he lifted his country to victory with 29 points in a narrow win over France.
And that’s why what he did Sunday, in front of a sold-out crowd at Stade Pierre Mauroy, a soccer stadium just outside of Lille, France, was so special. He hadn’t played for the Americans since — a calf strain forced him out of the entire exhibition campaign this summer.
“I was tired — I’m not going to lie to you,” said Durant, who finished 8-of-9 shooting with five 3s and two rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench. “My lungs were getting used to that intensity of the game, but it felt good to make some shots.”
Durant has only come off the bench three times in his storied NBA career.
ZERO missed shots for Kevin Durant in the first half.
Easy money. 🔥 #ParisOlympics
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Carmelo Anthony’s USA record of 37 points in an Olympic game seemed in serious jeopardy at halftime. But the Americans so thoroughly dominated Serbia in the second half that it was unnecessary for coach Steve Kerr to ask any more of Durant. He missed his only shot in the second — and frankly, it was a wide-open look he should’ve made.
But Durant had already done more than enough, draining shots during a tense first half in which Serbia led by eight early and made a small second-quarter run to keep it close.
“We wanted to limit his minutes and just ease him back in and I eased him in,” Kerr said. “He didn’t ease himself back in. He was brilliant.”
James, meanwhile, is the tournament’s second-oldest player at 39. There is almost no way to explain the ferocity and attitude with which he played Sunday, other than to say he is taking his co-captainship and pursuit of a third gold medal quite seriously.
James dunked in traffic, flexed his muscles, roared at the Serbia bench and at teammates alike. He is already the Americans’ all-time assists leader, and he played the role of point forward Kerr has carved out for him with aplomb. He finished the first quarter with an alley-oop to Anthony Edwards and connected with Durant at the first-half buzzer, firing a perfect strike to Durant for an equally perfect fadeaway jumper and a 58-49 lead.
GET OUT OF HIS WAY‼️
LeBron James is FEELING IT. #ParisOlympics
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“Coach Kerr drew up a great play, and then when you have cerebral guys we could just execute without ever working on it,” James said. “It started with a great rip screen by Steph (Curry). I saw KD coming off and I tried to throw it before he even caught it and he was able to hit the fadeaway. … That was big time.”
The Olympic opener served, at times, like a broad display of renewed American might. Yes, Team USA has won four consecutive golds, but the last international competition didn’t go so well. The U.S. finished fourth at the World Cup last summer; Serbia, by the way, was runner up.
On this day, Curry, 36, and Edwards, 22, both scored 11 points in their Olympic debuts. Jrue Holiday, a returning gold medalist, scored 15 points with three 3-pointers, and another gold medalist from those Tokyo games, Devin Booker, added 12 points.
As a team the Americans shot 62 percent from the field and 56 percent from 3-point range; that kind of offense with even a modicum of defense, and this team is unbeatable.
“That’s the best game we played so far,” James said.
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For Serbia, Nikola Jokić, the reigning NBA MVP, finished with 20 points, eight assists and five rebounds. The Americans used a rotation of Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo to stay in front of Jokić. Bogdan Bogdanovic contributed 14 points for the Serbians, who have now been beaten badly twice by the Americans this summer. The U.S. clobbered Serbia in a friendly earlier this month in Abu Dhabi.
The Serbians opened with relentless ball pressure and overall aggression that the Americans either weren’t ready for or decided to allow for a few minutes. It was 10-2 Serbia when Kerr called a timeout with 7:19 left in the first, and 19-14 when Durant finally joined the fray and drilled his first two jumpers (both 3s).
Those first few minutes were marred by lazy defense and turnovers, with Curry even allowing a backdoor cut for a layup — the kind of thing Kerr has been warning his team against since arriving in France after the exhibition season. When Kerr called that early first-quarter timeout, he seemed to let the players know that enough was enough.
“I don’t really remember what was said, but I know ‘back cut’ came into the conversation,” Kerr said. “I think Steph was the one who gave up the back cut, and so I mentioned that. But the whole point of this team is that we have great depth and it’s a 40-minute game and there’s going to be runs, and I think part of the message was just to settle in and we’re going to be fine, but we did reach a different level than what we saw. I mean, that was obvious.
“This was a different level of defensive intensity from the five friendlies that we played, and that’s what it’s going to take.”
Embiid also made his Olympic debut, and it didn’t go as well. Embiid, the former NBA MVP, chose to play for Team USA over Team France in the Olympics. He has citizenship in both countries but had long indicated a desire to play for Les Bleus before siding with the Americans last fall.
Embiid was booed every time he touched the ball and finished with four points on 2-of-5 shooting in 11 minutes.
Kerr dumped his routine from the exhibition season of using five subs at a time. With Embiid struggling early, Kerr went to Davis (seven points, eight rebounds) immediately with the rest of the starters.
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Durant’s return to the rotation meant Jayson Tatum, a three-time first-team All-NBA selection at least for the first game, was out. Tatum averaged 6.4 points and shot 47 percent during the exhibition season. Booker kept his spot in Kerr’s starting lineup, but how long that lasts is a fair question.
“It’s really hard in a 40-minute game to play more than 10 guys, and with Kevin coming back, I just went to the combinations that I felt would make the most sense,” Kerr said. “It seems crazy. I thought I was crazy when I looked at everything and determined these are the lineups I want to get to. Jason’s first-team All-NBA three years in a row, he’s one of the best players in the world.
“So I went with the combinations that I felt like would make sense and talked to him and he’s incredibly professional. That’s tonight. That doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way the rest of the tournament, so he’ll make his mark.”
Team USA’s next game is against South Sudan at 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday. South Sudan beat Puerto Rico on Sunday.
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(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
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Publish date : 2024-07-28 16:27:57
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