TEAM USA might be vying for its fifth straight Olympic gold medal in basketball in Paris, but they may have been put in a situation where simply ruling the men’s tournament is no longer enough.
LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant will look to lead USA past France in a game that, for the host team, may be for the gold medal, but has a bigger significance altogether for the Americans who will be putting their decades-long stranglehold on the sport on the line.
Tip off is at 9:30 p.m. inside Bercy Arena in Paris (3:30 A.M. Manila time), where the Americans could finally shut down murmurs that they're losing clout in the sport - until the next Olympic cycle, at least.
It's also up to France and its sure-to-be boisterous home crowd, though, whether or not the complexion of global basketball will be shaken up for good.
“You expect them to play the game of their life because they’re gonna have the homecourt adrenaline. They’re riding big momentum after these last two games,” Curry told reporters after exploding for 36 points in their 95-91 comeback win over Serbia in the semifinals.
READ: USA storms back from 17 points down to stun upset-seeking Serbia
“You’ve got to expect them to play great, but we expect that from ourselves as well.”
Expectations went through the roof the moment James and Curry announced their intentions to join Team USA for the Olympics to link up with Durant – who’s been the undisputed face of the team in the quadrennial games.
This is Curry's first Olympic campaign, while James returned to active duty for the first time since 2012 in London.
With the troika leading nine other equally brilliant basketball players in this salvo, it’s certainly a put-up-or-shut-up moment for Team USA, and up until the semis – they were doing a lot of putting up before running into Nikola Jokic and Serbia.
After posting an average winning margin of 21.3 points in the group stages and dominating Brazil in the quarterfinals by 35, the Americans found themselves trailing by as many as 17, and by 15 late in the third quarter, against a determined Serbian squad looking to pull off what would've been the biggest upset in basketball.
Team USA has experienced losses in the past, for sure. But a team which consists of the undisputed best players in the NBA? It might've been unheard of.
Fortunately, the trio of James, Curry and Durant all played true to form in the comeback, avoiding what would've been the longest summer for all the players and coaches involved in the program.
“I wasn't probably as calm as I pretended to be,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr admitted in the post-game press conference.
"We knew coming into this tournament that there's always going to be a game like this. It's the Olympics, FIBA, 40 minutes. One game and you're out. So you're not gonna blaze through this tournament, we knew that.” he added.
“You have to be able to maintain your poise, and that's what impressed me the most in the second half, just the poise of our guys, combined with the competitive spirit to get it done."
World Champions of what?
The pressure is so high for Team USA that they may be the only Olympians also facing opposition from their countrymen.
Just a day after their pulsating win over Serbia, Durant went off on his fellow Americans on X for seemingly rooting against their own national team.
That's because the US victory wasn’t enough for a number of those fans, who continued to troll the squad for needing a vintage performance from Curry to survive Jokic, Bogdan Bogdanovic and the rest of Serbia.
It’s an issue essentially rooted with the never-ending comparison between today’s era and the previous ones, particularly the highly-touted 1992 Dream Team which is credited for the globalization of basketball.
The problem is that fans fail to recognize that the legacy of the Dream Team also includes pushing the rest of the world to shape up, evident with the plethora of generational basketball talents that have sprouted outside the US.
Safe to say, the likes of Michael Jordan and Larry Bird didn't have a Jokic or Greece's Giannis Antetokounmpo or Canada's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to worry about back then. And don't forget that Luka Doncic isn’t even playing in the Olympics.
The fact that countries like France can now bench a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year in Rudy Gobert and play better is also a telling sign that competition has only intensified through the years.
That the Americans still remain ahead of the pack in a sport that’s getting more crowded should be celebrated, if Durant’s to be asked. It sets up some of the highest level of basketball to be played, and offers fans games that will play on in their minds for a long time.
“This game is going to go down as one of the most memorable games for anybody. You see Jokic on that end doing everything he can do to will his team to victory, then you got four other MVPs on our team,” Durant said, referring to himself, James, Curry, and Joel Embiid.
“You also have to give other guys credit too, like Bogi [Bogdanovic], and sorry if I forgot his name, number 30 [Aleksa Avramovich]. He played extremely well. It was just high level basketball.”
Embiid vs. The French a fun substory
If the men’s basketball tournament was professional wrestling, then Joel Embiid may be the biggest heel - or bad guy in common parlance - of them all for the hosts.
That means this match against France is certainly his Wrestlemania moment.
For a guy who’s enjoyed playing up to the opposing crowd, doing ‘suck-it’ crotch chops to fans, the gold medal match will be the closest Embiid will have to his pro wrestling dreams, as he plays the villain of all villains to an underdog-loving crowd.
If his 19-point performance against his longtime rival Jokic in front of an angry French mob was any indication, then he’s certainly ready to go over.
“It’s all about Team USA against France, but I know myself, I’m going to interact myself and I’m going to enjoy it,” Embiid told Sam Amick and Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
“They’re going to boo me. I’m going to go back at them and tell ‘em to suck it. And so it’s going to be fun.”
Embiid's history with France is no secret, as before committing to Team USA, he was being lured by France to join its national team.
No less than French president Emmanuel Macron recruited Embiid to play for Les Bleus, but the Philadelphia 76ers franchise player ultimately decided to suit up for the US, having lived there since he was 16 years old.
It's a decision that France hasn't forgotten, and while Embiid promises to play with the crowd, he understands that this match is bigger than himself or his decisions.
"I think a lot of people wanted to [make it an issue] because of storyline and all that stuff, but to me it's whatever it takes to win to gold," he said.
"So that's what I'm focused on. It's all about Team USA against France."
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