PARIS — The ball bounced off the rim 5 occasions.
5!
Stephen Curry got here off that brick-house display from Joel Embiid late within the fourth quarter, with Serbian guard Ognjen Dobrić operating into the wall as if he had been Wile E. Coyote and crumpling to the ground, and the best shooter of all time fired a shot from up prime that may as effectively have landed on a craps desk.
With simply 144 seconds left to play on this FIBA-style recreation the place the clock is nobody’s buddy, it fell by the web to present Staff USA a lead for the primary time since halfway by the primary quarter. Finally, Staff USA pulled off probably the most beautiful comebacks ever by in some way surviving a 17-point deficit in opposition to Serbia, 95-91, en path to the Olympic gold-medal recreation in opposition to France. Finally, we’ll come to really admire how shut this squad — with names like LeBron James, Curry, Kevin Durant and so many extra all-time abilities on board — got here to a degree of infamy that will have surpassed the 2004 group that took bronze in Athens and impressed a reckoning inside the nationwide program because of this.
STEPHEN. CURRY. TEAM USA LEADS.#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC, USA Community and Peacock pic.twitter.com/C4MUUl1v78
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024
Phew.
I truthfully don’t know what else to say.
Once you cowl worldwide tournaments such because the Olympics, there’s a degree of assist from some non-American media for his or her respective groups that’s, to be sincere, fairly off-putting. Some reporters cheer on press row, which is taken into account a no-no in the US, and others even shout disparaging issues at American gamers like Joel Embiid (true story).
However to look at these Individuals stroll as much as the sting like they did, and to anticipate the kind of scrutiny that was headed their means from folks like yours really in the event that they fell brief, was to quietly hope that photographs like Curry’s late 3 would fall. It’s a dynamic that merely doesn’t exist within the NBA, one which’s born out of the fact that one group of people so significantly better than the others. And when Curry completed the job, stealing that go from Bogdan Bogdanović and going coast-to-coast for a left-to-right layup that put Staff USA up 91-86 with 1:01 left, there was a way of reduction that the Golden State Warriors star had lastly had a second in his debut Summer time Video games.
As Staff USA coach Steve Kerr shared afterward, Curry had the look of a participant who was urgent coming in. He scored in single digits in three of Staff USA’s 4 Olympic video games whereas averaging a whopping 7.3 factors within the first 4, with the lone spotlight of his first Olympics expertise being the exhibition recreation in opposition to Serbia on July 17 during which he scored 24 factors.
That was baby’s play in comparison with this one. Curry was unconscious, ending with 36 factors whereas hitting 12 of 19 photographs and burying 9 of 14 3s in all.
You understand how many occasions he has hit that many 3s on 14 or fewer makes an attempt in his complete storied profession? 9, in response to Stathead.com, and that features 1,103 video games in all between common season and playoffs (0.8 % of the time). As a related reminder, these video games are 40 minutes lengthy and never the 48-minute affairs we see within the NBA. The truth that it got here in a recreation during which Staff USA was in such determined want of a hoops hero made it all of the extra epic.
“There have been occasions these final couple weeks the place I assumed (Curry) was working too arduous,” mentioned Kerr, the Warriors coach who has had his front-row seat to Curry’s greatness for a decade. “He simply cares a lot, works so arduous at his recreation consistently. Everyone knows who he’s, what he’s about, and I nearly wished to inform him, ‘Hey, take a day without work,’ But it surely’s simply not who he’s. He works so arduous, and he willed himself to that recreation tonight over the previous couple weeks with the work he’s put in.”
Curry, the 36-year-old who had nonetheless managed to take pleasure in this Olympic expertise to the fullest off the ground, insisted the partitions weren’t closing in.
“I didn’t really feel (stress) in any respect, as a result of we had been successful by … 15, 20 each recreation,” he mentioned. “I do know that I have an effect on the sport in different methods. However about two minutes into the sport tonight, we realized that I’m getting appears to be like, that they had been taking part in a special kind of protection on us. Clearly, they had been scoring loopy on the opposite finish, so that you simply preserve going and get misplaced within the second.
“It’s regardless of the recreation requires. I shot thrice final recreation (in a rout of Brazil), and I wasn’t seeking to power it, as a result of that’s not what the sport referred to as for. In order that’s the great thing about Staff USA and FIBA and this complete expertise. Each recreation has been someone completely different.”
Nonetheless, to listen to Curry’s facet of the story was to understand this function has been a large adjustment for him. Whereas he entered the Serbia recreation taking pictures simply 35.7 % from the sector and 25 % from three (5 of 20), he had additionally averaged simply seven photographs per recreation. That context, the fact that this group makes it so difficult for therefore many nice gamers to discover a technique to play like they do with their NBA squads, is commonly misplaced within the dialogue.
“I haven’t had many alternatives,” Curry mentioned so plainly. “I haven’t shot the ball effectively the entire event, nevertheless it doesn’t waver your confidence to satisfy the second.”
And did he ever.
When one of many best basketball video games of all time was over, James — who was part of the ’04 group the USA Basketball program would fairly everybody neglect — threw the ball into the air and regarded down to search out Curry ready to hug him with unbridled pleasure. It was a surreal scene in each means, the sight of those two NBA rivals sharing the form of reminiscence nobody may have imagined when their Cavs and Warriors groups had been battling for all these years within the finals.
GO DEEPER
LeBron James, Steph Curry had a ‘wholesome resentment’ — Olympics supply one thing new
So, I requested James, the place does this recreation rank by way of sheer emotion?
“I imply, it’s up there,” mentioned James, the four-time champion and Los Angeles Lakers star whose triple-double (16 factors, 12 rebounds and 10 assists) performed a large half within the win. “I imply, I’m 39 years outdated, going into my twenty second season. I don’t know what number of alternatives or moments I’m gonna get like this, to have the ability to compete for one thing large and play in large video games.”
This recreation was greater than large. It was downright magical, with all this historical past tied up between the gamers who matter most chucking up the sponge for the sake of their nationwide pleasure. Simply take heed to Kevin Durant, the Phoenix Suns star who received two championships with Curry in Golden State and seemed like he’d by no means seen something like this earlier than.
“Steph, man, that was a God-like like efficiency,” mentioned Durant, who compelled Bogdanović into a vital backcourt violation with 1:34 left and hit a nasty jumper with 34 seconds remaining that put Staff USA up 93-89. “Dang, (Curry) was robust. He felt like he was struggling all through the entire event, and we at all times mentioned every evening it might be someone completely different (each recreation). And tonight, he confirmed up in a means that, man…”
Durant nearly couldn’t discover the phrases.
“Shot after shot, getting a steal after which ending with the layup,” he mentioned. “He was all over the place tonight. It was one of many best video games I’ve ever seen him play.”
Required Studying
(Prime photograph of Stephen Curry and Aleksa Avramović: Ezra Shaw / Getty Pictures)
