PARIS — America’s recurring dream continues.
As James Brown’s “Living in America” played over the Bercy Arena loudspeakers, several of the greatest NBA players ever from the U.S. draped themselves in their country’s flag and celebrated a 98-87 win over France on Saturday.
Two of them were born in the same hospital in Akron, Ohio, three years apart. Another was born in Washington, D.C. Others in Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis. One, in Cameroon. From sea to shining sea, they competed in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi and London, at an outdoor soccer stadium just outside of Lille, France, and in Paris. And they formed a team America could root for — one that was both dominant and tested, and ultimately victorious against the rest of the world that has never been better at this game than it is now.
“We got our moment,” said LeBron James, 39, the second-oldest player at the Olympics, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, and now, MVP of the 2024 Olympic tournament. “It’s a basketball world. Everybody loves the game. We just hope that we continue to inspire people all over the world.”
That’s five consecutive gold medals for the U.S. men in basketball, and as importantly, the Americans will be the defending champs when the Olympics shift to Los Angeles in four years.
Among the most star-studded rosters the United States has ever sent to the Olympics, with 11 NBA All-Stars that drew constant comparisons to the “Dream Team” of 1992, Team USA made good on its promise Saturday by winning arguably the toughest road game in U.S. history — against the defending silver medalist in its nation’s capital, with a 9:30 p.m. local start.
There’s nothing like a Saturday night in Paris, especially if the chain around your neck is a gold medal.
Kevin Durant, already the U.S. all-time leading scorer, is now the only men’s player ever to win four Olympic golds in basketball. He made his only start of the 2024 Olympics and finished with 15 points.
“It was, for me, about pushing the game forward on the big stage, help set the culture for USAB,” said Durant, who started winning gold medals and scoring more than 500 Olympic points back in 2012. “There’s so many great players that play in this program that you don’t even think about who’s the best player? You just come out here and try to contribute as much as you can for the big picture.”
Steph Curry, in his first and maybe only Olympics and a hero from the Americans’ narrow win over Serbia to even reach the gold-medal game, led the U.S. with 24 points. He drained four crucial 3-pointers inside of 3 minutes to go, including the game-clincher with 33 seconds, in what would have been a poor shot by virtually anyone on the planet other than him, and finished the game with eight 3s.
Curry, born in the same hospital as James in Ohio, connected on 17 3s in the last two games. When he began his late barrage on Saturday, the French had pulled to within three points before Curry let it fly with 2:47 left.
“At that point your mind goes blank,” Curry said. “You don’t really care about the setting or the scenario or anything, it’s just a shot. Thankfully, that one went in, it settled us down, and after that it’s just rhythm and flow and confidence and that was it.”
James is now a three-time gold winner, but this is his first medal since the 2012 Games. He wore a pair of shiny gold Nike high tops for this championship game, and scored 14 points with 10 assists and six rebounds. He picked up MVP honors — voted by media and FIBA officials — behind averages of 14.2 points, 6.8 rebounds and 8.5 assists for the tournament.
Devin Booker, a two-time gold medalist now, scored 13 of his 15 points for the U.S. in the first half. He added six rebounds. Anthony Davis, also a two-time Olympic gold winner, added eight points and nine rebounds.
“It’s kind of hard to put into words — two times,” Booker said. “This experience was totally different from the first one. Not taking anything away from that, but the atmosphere, obviously Steph and LeBron joining us, this experience is going up there with any other experience in my lifetime.”
Reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama, who grew up near Paris, was awesome with 26 points and seven rebounds. Former Boston Celtic Guerschon Yabusele added 20 points.
France is still looking for its first gold medal in basketball, but has Wemby, Bilal Coulibaly and the four Frenchmen drafted into the NBA in the first round last June at its disposal for the foreseeable future.
“The U.S. is still the best team in the world,” said French captain Nicolas Batum, who scored five points in 25 minutes. “Maybe at some point they will lose, but that’s why we call them the Dream Team or the Avengers or whatever, but maybe some time it will happen.”
Team USA coach Steve Kerr had already said he would step down from the post at the conclusion of the Olympics. He does so as a champion. The Americans beat their opponents at the Olympics by a combined 114 points, though the 17-point deficit they faced against Serbia and the three-point lead they held late against France are true indicators of just how tough the final two games were.
Five times, including in the Olympic semifinals against Serbia when a loss would have ruined everything, the U.S. was challenged in games until the final moments. Such a thing never happened to the Dream Team, but that was decades ago.
Basketball grew around the world because of what Michael Jordan’s last Olympic team did, and it took a superstar cast with some of the greatest to ever play to outlast a star-studded tournament at the Paris Games.
Keep that in mind as you consider where to rank this iteration of Team USA among the great teams that came before it, and also begin to ponder what the next American roster will look like in four years for the L.A. Games in 2028.
“It’s everything I imagined and more, just the excitement of doing it with the guys in our locker room, we all signed up for the mission to continue USA basketball dominance,” Curry said. “Obviously I understood it was going to be a really tough task with some great teams that we’re going to have to face and there’s a sense of relief at the end, but it’s more a sense of accomplishment obviously knowing what we were able to do.”
Kerr made myriad changes to his lineup and rotation. Durant started instead of Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum re-emerged off the bench, playing instead of Derrick White. Kerr also chose to use one of his three big men at a time, starting Joel Embiid but playing him just five minutes in the first half.
The Embiid-France sidestory fizzled as the drama heightened on the court involving the rest of the players. Embiid, while he did receive his usual boos from the French crowd before the game for choosing the U.S. over France for the Olympics, finished with four points in 11 minutes. He was born in Cameroon but has American and French passports. He could have been a part of a French starting lineup next to 7-footers Rudy Gobert and Wembanyama, but instead has gold with the U.S.
The Americans shot 18-of-36 from 3 and produced 10 steals — hanging their hats on their two key principles of defense and shooting. The French were able to keep the U.S. from playing at a faster pace, which is how they beat Canada and Germany in upsets to get to this point. The Americans also committed 17 turnovers, which Kerr credited to France’s ball pressure — something Serbia and South Sudan successfully pushed on the U.S. over the last few weeks.
“There were several moments where it felt like we were going to push (the lead) from 10 to 15 and we were going to be in the clear. We just couldn’t get there,” Kerr said.
Kerr had intended to take advantage of his superior guard play, and in the end, it was Curry who made the difference. Curry scored just 28 points in the Americans’ first four Olympic games, and Kerr shrugged it off because he said the team’s focus was on defense.
But without Curry taking the lid off of Serbian and French defenses, the Americans may have left Paris with no medal at all, let alone gold. The last 3 Curry unleashed was over Batum and Evan Fournier, who were swarming him.
“Down the stretch, Steph took over,” Kerr said. “He actually suggested in the timeout with about three minutes left, he said, ‘Lemme run a clear side pick and roll with LeBron and we’ll spread the floor.’ I said, ‘OK, let’s do that because I’ve seen it before and it usually works out well.’
“And then he put on that show down the stretch in the last few minutes and it was pretty amazing to watch.”
The same could be said about this team. The Avengers. The Last Dance for James, Durant and Curry on Team USA. A bridge to the next generation, led by players who were on the court Saturday, and perhaps others watching on big-screen TVs at their mansions on the beach.
Four years from now, in Los Angeles, it will be their turn to keep the dream going.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
© 2024 The New York Times Company
