Team USA vs.Team Serbia
Rio 2016 Olympics Finals, will face Team USA men’s basketball gold medal matchup vs. Serbia.
Away of relative struggles throughout the Olympic tourney, Team USA is one victory away from winning gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. That win will not be easy, as the U.S. will be facing a Serbia a great team that took it the distance.
The Serbians actually had a wide-open 3-pointer to tie the game as time expired in the group stage. Head Coach Sasha Djordjevic, said to the press, “A three-year tenure running the Serbian national team, Serbia has gone 3-0 when facing an opponent to which it lost earlier in the tournament.” It happened twice in the World Cup in 2014, when Serbia bounced back from losses to Brazil and France to beat each of those teams in the knockout stage. And it happened on Friday night, when Serbia trounced Australia in their semifinal, after having lost to the Boomers in group play.”
Playoffs margin of victory in their first meeting, U.S. at 15.5-point favorites over Serbia, and it’s hard to argue with a line like that. At first glance, it might even seem low given the talent disparity here.
In another word Americans have a huge talent advantage in every game they have played. This could largely be about the U.S. team’s ability, or inability, to control emotions. From the 12 players on the U.S. roster, only Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant have won an Olympic gold medal, most of these guys have ever played in, probably including the NBA Finals for guys like Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
Looking of perspective that Serbia can hit a few shots and extend the game into the second half while remaining within reasonable striking distance, the U.S. might tighten up with the prospect of a colossal choke job staring it down.
The U.S. is more than capable of putting this game out of reach by halftime, which held three points on 1-of-6 shooting. Thompson, who has been inserted into the starting lineup, has since found his stroke in a big way, almost single-handedly carrying the U.S. offense at times.
Thompson is a real X-factor for the Americans because much of the defensive attention will be devoted to Durant and Anthony — though both (Durant’s team-leading 17.9 points per game notwithstanding) have struggled to consistently score at an efficient level in this tournament. Still, they’re the threats, the real matchup problems, and as a result Klay, who led the U.S. with 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting (4 of 8 from three) in the semifinal vs. Spain, is going to continue getting open looks.
impressive wins over Argentina and Spain, the gold-medal game will probably look different than the first game. Here’s what Team USA needs to do in order to ensure that they’re on the happy side of that difference:
Serbian captain Teodosic had his best game in his team’s clobbering of Australia in the semifinal, scoring 22 points with five assists. Serbia is strong on the interior, and Teodosic is always important because of his passing ability, but when gives them an outside threat in addition, they are very difficult to guard. Serbia has been able to survive even when Teodosic has not shot the ball well—he was shooting 30.3 percent at the Olympics before the Australia game but he is capable of getting hot from the 3-point line. Against the U.S. in their first game, Teodosic made four of the seven 3s he tried.
DeAndre Jordan was outstanding in the Team USA win over Spain, grabbing 16 rebounds, blocking four shots and altering a handful more. Jordan was good in the first meeting with Serbia, but he played only 14 minutes and had one rebound. He needs to be a defensive presence against the Serbian big men Miroslav Raduljica and Nikola Jokic, who combined for 43 points in the first meeting. Serbia outscored the U.S. in the paint in that game, 42-36. “The defense has been pretty good,” Krzyzewski said. “Against Spain, DeAndre (Jordan) had a non-scoring great night. He had a superb night defensively with the 16 boards and blocked shots and protecting our basket. That was an incredible performance by DeAndre.”
This will be Team USA’s eighth game, and it about time they learned that they can’t keep getting caught up in bickering with the referees. For one thing, they very often have short fuses, and will ring up technical even after only slight protestation. For another thing, some don’t speak English, so yelling at them gets you nowhere, anyway. “For us, (it’s) just maintaining our poise,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve had at times a problem with how the game is administered and so we need to keep our focus on the play and not anything else.”
Klay Thompson was awful to start these Olympics, shooting 4-for-26 for 13 points in the U.S.’s first four games. But Thompson was huge in the tight win over France, making seven 3-pointers and finishing with 30 points. He was just 2-for-8 in the blowout of Argentina in the quarterfinals, but his offense was crucial in the semifinal against Spain, when he scored 22 points on 8-for-16 shooting. The American offense has been disjointed throughout the Olympics, sometimes getting scoring from Carmelo Anthony, sometimes from Kevin Durant and sometimes from Thompson, who will have to be on the floor because of his perimeter defense. If Thompson can have his shot going, it will open up better looks for Durant and Anthony.
Serbia probably has big chance for winning the gold.
