Two nights after defeating Spain in the semifinals, USA Basketball’s Men’s National Team squared off against the Serbian National Team in the gold medal game at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, at Carioca Arena 1.
U.S. head coach Mike Kyrzyzewski once again started Golden State Warriors teammates Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant at shooting guard and small forward, respectively, to go along with Kyrie Irving at point guard, Carmelo Anthony at small forward, and DeAndre Jordan at center.
Serbia’s head coach, Aleksandar “Sasha” Dordevic, started point guard Milos Teodosic, shooting guard Stefan Markovic, small forward Milan Macvan, power forward Nikola Kalinic, and Miroslav Raduljica at center.
1st Quarter – Iron Unkind
Team USA started the game with two straight turnovers on a intercepted jump pass by Irving and Durant traveling after catching the ball off a curl, and Serbia drew first blood as Teodosic drove and made his signature pass across the body to Macvan at the top for a swish.
Thompson’s first shot came right after that, a missed three from the left wing that Jordan was able to tap out for an offensive rebound.
Anthony used the extra possession to fire off a three after going behind-the-back to try and juke his man, but his shot was too long.
Jordan, however, got in the mix again, got the offensive rebound and putback, plus a trip to the line. Jordan missed the free throw as expected, though.
Klay picked up a foul on a hand-off to Teodosic, but came back with a deflection on the Serbian point guard, which led to a right block post-up on Teodosic for a fade-away jumper that went through the net.
Serbia got two straight buckets on a Raduljica jumper setup by Markovic, then a Teodosic runner, to go up 7-4.
But after a missed dribble-and-pop that hit back iron, Durant disrupted a Teodosic-to-Raduljica feed and got by Kalinic on a crossover and drive, getting fouled in the process. However, “KD” missed again from the free throw line, making just one of two to go a subpar 22-for-28 overall in the Olympics.
Later, Macvan got a dribble slapped away by Thompson and Durant dunked on the fastbreak, uncontested.
Macvan, though, got a putback on Teodosic’s missed three and Serbia went back up, 9-7, with 5:40 remaining.
Klay missed a three at the shotclock buzzer on the next possession, but Anthony got a hand on the rebound and Markovic fouled him, leading to a baseline out-of-bounds play for the U.S.
Thompson got the catch on the inbound and buried a jumper.
Jordan blocked a Teodosic drive, but Klay’s fast break alley-oop attempt to Jordan went too hard and Durant made a bad pass to Jordan as well, but the sequence of empty possessions eventually ended up with Irving making a nice split of a double-team off the bounce for a runner to go up, 11-9, USA.
Bogdanovic, just getting past Thompson although Klay was still in range for the defense, then found Raduljica for a dunk as Jordan doubled. Thompson threw his hands up to indicate the double-team wasn’t needed.
Klay then lost the ball on a knock-away by Bogdanovic but Irving hustled back to foul the fast break layup. With 3:30 to play, Serbia went up, 13-11, after the free throws.
Bogdonavic went downhill from there, missing two ill-advised deep threes, both on catch-and-shoots, plus a runner,while Paul George, in for Thompson, hit free throws on a fouled drive and DeMar DeRozan flipped a pass to a cutting DeMarcus Cousins.
That finally gave Team USA the lead at 16-14.
Serbia’s shooting woes continued, as did USA’s, as Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets missed his first attempt and Teodosic surprisingly missed the first of two free throws.
Durant hit a three from the top as Kyle Lowry dribbled by and tossed an assist to him, Bogdanovic bricked again from the deep left wing, and the United States took a slim 19-15 lead into the second stanza.
USA went 7-for-20 for the quarter, but Serbia shot just as or even more poorly, and both teams seemed to have dodged respective bullets in the process.
2nd Quarter – KD Heats Up
Bogdanovic got the second frame off to a rough start, getting a pass intercepted by George for a breakaway dunk.
Cousins then scored two buckets inside and added two free throws and, after Teodosic found Kalinic at the rim on a nice cut, Durant used a Cousins screen up top to take a couple dribbles towards the left wing, hitting a stop-and-pop three to give USA a 31-20 lead.
Macvan then zigged when Markovic thought he would zag, and a pass from the left wing up top got easily taken away by Durant for an uncontested dunk:
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
Dordevic had no choice but to call timeout as the avalanche triggered and Team USA went up 33-20, a 21-6 run since early in the first quarter.
But KD wasn’t finished.
After a Teodosic runner past a gambling George, followed by two straight fouls by Raduljica to give him three personals — the second of which was to stop a break by Irving — Durant struck again from the top, beyond the arc, with a swish:
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
He was now 4-for-6 on treys and stretched the lead to 38-22 with 5:25 to go.
Later, Kyrie found Klay in the right corner for three more, increasing the USA margin to 43-22.
KD took a bad three over Markovic that went short, Thompson added a missed three from deep, although Klay made a valiant effort with a one-handed putback attempt on a missed triple by Irving.
Then after Marko Simonovic also missed a three, KD used his left shoulder from the top, a slashing dribble past Markovic to rise and dunk with both hands at the rim.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
The emphatic bucket gave Team USA a dominant 45-25 lead, Durant totaling 19 points on 7-for-12 field already, to go along with 4-for-7 from downtown.
Jokic finally stopped the bleeding with a putback on another miss from Bogdanovic, with 2:05 left, but surrendered helpless to an upfake by KD and a runner that trickled in past Jokic.
To end the half, Bogdanovic’s bad dream continued as Durant tipped out an errant pass, leading a very Warriors-like game of pickle around the horn with Serbia’s defense on its heels, as Irving dished to Thompson at the top, who found KD on the left wing, who fed ‘Melo in the corner, only to get fed back for a swish by Durant from the left wing.
It was a play reminiscent of the Warriors’ unselfish passing:
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
With 18 seconds remaining, the United States’ lead bulged to 52-29 and Teodosic missed a three at the buzzer.
KD had amassed 27 points on 9-for-14 shooting, 5-for-8 on threes.
3rd Quarter – Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
With Raduljica saddled with three fouls, Dordevic turned to Jokic and backup big man Vladimir Stimac as his starting front line for the second half, but that didn’t make a difference.
Although Durant missed his first three-point try, Thompson quickly got on the board as he curled around a screen and made a lefty layup, giving him nine points for the game.
Klay played good defense on Teodosic’s stop-pivot-fade in the lane and, after a missed three, Klay came off another curl, feigned a jumper, only to end up passing a short lob to Jordan for an alley-oop.
Anthony blocked a Raduljica jumper, and KD went early offense, found a seam, and scored an easy right-handed layup off the glass.
Markovic missed, and Lowry pushed the ball up, finding Durant on the right wing, which shoveled it right away to Thompson in the corner for the open three.
Dordevic called timeout as Klay’s three gave him points number 10, 11, and 12, a total of 5-for-11 on field goals.
With 4:32 to play in the third, USA weren’t looking back, up a whopping 65-34.
On the slow-motion replay of the “tic-tac-toe” passing, NBC color announcer Doug Collins lauded KD’s extra pass.
“If I’m an NBA coach,” Collins said, “I’m having nightmares of all the open shots the Stephen Curry, Klay, and Durant are going to get, the way they pass the ball.”
With the game out of hand, Dordevic turned to former Warriors first-round draft pick, Nemanja Nedovic and he promptly hit a runner.
But George got yet another open three from the corner, utilizing a Lowry-Cousins pick-and-roll and swing pass to Durant in the process.
Cousins bothered a Bogdanovic three (again), and ‘Melo finished the next sequence with a slam dunk from the left baseline.
Raduljica turned the ball over, and Anthony scored again inside. USA went up 73-39 as Jimmy Butler finally checked in for Durant.
Cousins induced Raduljica into his fourth personal foul, later got a dunk fed by Lowry, but Durant missed two threes — one short and one long — as an offensive rebound by Butler enabled him to reload, and Jokic put back a missed shot by Nedovic.
Butler continued to play great in the hustle stats department, chasing down Teodosic to tap the ball out from him from behind with just 25 seconds to go, and Durant buried two free throws.
Nedovic threw a wild pass into the backboard, and Durant tossed a one-handed putback of a missed three by Lowry into the hoop, but it was well after the quarter buzzer, and USA held a 79-43 lead heading into the final frame.
4th Quarter – Nedo, We Hardly Knew Ye
Durant opened the final frame with a missed three, but Butler went on to record three consecutive offensive rebounds on follow-up misses from George beyond the arc and a runner by Cousins, to finally feed Lowry for the triple from the right corner at the buzzer of the shot clock wailed away.
With 8:53 left, KD sat down for the last time, ending his day with 30 points on 10-for-19 field, 5-for-11 downtown.
DeRozan hit a fade-away and got a jam on tic-tac-toe play by Lowry to George, and Draymond Green finally got some burn with USA up, 88-47.
However, Green smoked a jumper from the left wing and, after Harrison Barnes checked in for the first time, Draymond also made a bad lead pass to DeRozan on a cut.
Barnes and Green each missed a three-pointer, but Bogdanovic coughed the ball up to Barnes and he found Lowry on the outlet.
Draymond made a nice cut to the bucket with the ball in Lowry’s hands, but wasn’t quite open, so Lowry deftly turned the “almost-pass” into his next dribble, and found Barnes on the opposite side, who then made a zig-zag pass back to Green where he ended up after the cut in front of Lowry.
With that, Draymond was on the board with two points.
Nedovic had a nice game in garbage time, getting switched onto Green in the deep post, holding his ground long enough for Draymond to throw the ball back out errantly for an “and-one” fast break layup by Bogdanovic.
But with 2:46 remaining, the game was well out of reach, Serbia now down 90-57.
Green made another bad lead pass before a Butler jumper got him on the board, and with 1:53 to play, Coach K inserted Anthony, then took him out, to get him the all-time Olympic career lead in rebounds.
“Nedo” made a no-look assist, an and-one, and a layup on the break courtesy of a ball-handling turnover on Barnes before “HB” atoned and curled around for a lefty layup, ensuring that all of the United States players scored in the gold medal game.
That was the last USA bucket, and meaningless free throws by Macvan yielded the final score of 96-66, restoring Team USA’s dominance on the international level.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @usabasketball)
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
