Team USA’s narrow escape over Serbia in the semifinals of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament lends fresh drama to Saturday’s final against France, which will be playing with a home-court advantage that has to be heard to be believed.
The so-talented-it-is-hard-to-comprehend US roster carved up Serbia, South Sudan and Puerto Rico in group play and then bulldozed Brazil in its quarterfinal matchup.
Having already beaten Serbia twice in the last few weeks and looking unstoppable, Team USA went into Thursday’s game against the European nation expecting another romp. But a spirited Serb team led by 17 points at one point, requiring the US to have to rally in the final minutes of the game to put away three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić and company.
The French team that the US faces in the final in Paris’ Bercy Arena Saturday night will not have a player currently the quality of Jokić – who’s to say what turns out of NBA Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama? – but it will have the backing of a feverish French home crowd, which brings an intensity that many of these NBA stars may not have witnessed since their college basketball days years ago.
“We expect them to play the game of their life because they’re going to have the home-court adrenaline, they’re riding a big momentum after these last two games,” said Stephen Curry, the future Hall of Famer who had his breakout Olympics performance against Serbia. “We’ve got to expect them to play great, but we expect that from ourselves as well.”
Throughout these Games, the French have showed up in force and made their voices heard in support of their athletes. From the Stade de France’s rugby sevens final to Léon Marchand’s epic performances in the pool at La Défense Arena, the noise made by the hosts of this tournament has sometimes felt like being next to a jetliner taking off.
At Bercy Arena, it’s no different. While the singing and chanting is done throughout the arena, it’s led by a section of supporters behind one of the baskets that stands, sings, chants and drums – yes, there are multiple drummers – throughout the entire game. It makes for an atmosphere that is more akin to a European soccer match than an NBA game, where even during playoff games, crowd noise is sometimes drowned out by music or chant prompts over the public address system.
That din of noise will likely be ratcheted up even higher during Saturday’s final between the host nation and the overwhelming favorite made up of an insane amount of talent.
“It’s what you dream of when you’re a kid,” said France and Minnesota Timberwolves star Rudy Gobert. “I remember, like it’s today, like it was yesterday, dreaming about seeing myself playing in the final at home in the Olympics. And now we’re here.”
It’s a challenge that the American team is looking forward to as a collection of players with loads of NBA championships between them are soaking up the Olympic experience.
“That’s going to be the most-watched game, I feel like, since I’ve been playing in FIBA. I’m excited for it, I’m excited for that challenge, and we all are,” said Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant, Team USA’s all-time leading scorer.
Durant added, “I love representing my country. We love playing for our country. A lot of bullsh*t goes on in our country, too, but there’s a lot of great things that come from where we come from. We love the brotherhood that comes with USAB [USA Basketball]. These experiences, we’re going to remember them for the rest of our lives, so we want to make the most of it.”
“This is what everybody wants, right? So it’s going to be a fun one,” said Durant’s Suns teammate Devin Booker of the final. “It’s electric in there. Their crowd has been electric even when France isn’t playing against us, so I can only imagine how it’s going to be Saturday.”
But that talent doesn’t always mesh very well. Despite looking in sync throughout the group stage and against Brazil, there were signs of chemistry issues in pre-Olympics exhibitions and during the game against Serbia. It’ll be up to head coach Steve Kerr to make sure that his collection of superstars channel the desperation that marked the final quarter of the semifinal rather than the dysfunction that characterized the first three.
“We’ve got to make tomorrow our best defensive game. Our defense has carried us through this tournament, it’s what we know wins a FIBA [the International Basketball Federation, which plays under different rules than the NBA] game, and the game got away from us last night,” Kerr said on Saturday.
“We’ve got to be ready with a better defensive edge, more physicality and we’ve got to be able to play off of our defense.”
