PARIS — The ball bounced off the rim 5 occasions.
5!
Stephen Curry got here off that brick-house display screen from Joel Embiid late within the fourth quarter, with Serbian guard Ognjen Dobrić working into the wall as if he have 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 sport the place the clock is nobody’s good friend, it fell by way of the online to offer Crew USA a lead for the primary time since halfway by way of the primary quarter. Finally, Crew USA pulled off one of the gorgeous comebacks ever by one way or the other surviving a 17-point deficit towards Serbia, 95-91, en path to the Olympic gold-medal sport towards France. Finally, we’ll come to really recognize 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 may have surpassed the 2004 workforce 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.
Whenever 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 trustworthy, fairly off-putting. Some reporters cheer on press row, which is taken into account a no-no in the USA, and others even shout disparaging issues at American gamers like Joel Embiid (true story).
However to observe these Individuals stroll as much as the sting like they did, and to anticipate the type of scrutiny that was headed their method from individuals like yours actually in the event that they fell quick, was to quietly hope that pictures 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 truth that you realize one group of people so a lot 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 Crew USA up 91-86 with 1:01 left, there was a way of aid that the Golden State Warriors star had lastly had a second in his debut Summer season Video games.
As Crew 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 Crew 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 sport towards Serbia on July 17 through which he scored 24 factors.
That was youngster’s play in comparison with this one. Curry was unconscious, ending with 36 factors whereas hitting 12 of 19 pictures and burying 9 of 14 3s in all.
You know the way many occasions he has hit that many 3s on 14 or fewer makes an attempt in his complete storied profession? 9, in keeping with Stathead.com, and that features 1,103 video games in all between common season and playoffs (0.8 p.c 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 sport through which Crew USA was in such determined want of a hoops hero made it all of the extra epic.
“There were times these last couple weeks where I thought (Curry) was working too hard,” stated Kerr, the Warriors coach who has had his front-row seat to Curry’s greatness for a decade. “He just cares so much, works so hard at his game constantly. We all know who he is, what he’s about, and I almost wanted to tell him, ‘Hey, take a day off,’ But it’s just not who he is. He works so hard, and he willed himself to that game tonight over the past 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 feel (pressure) at all, because we were winning by … 15, 20 every game,” he stated. “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 seems, that they have been enjoying a unique sort of protection on us. Clearly, they have been scoring loopy on the opposite finish, so that you simply maintain going and get misplaced within the second.
“It’s whatever the game calls for. I shot three times last game (in a rout of Brazil), and I wasn’t looking to force it, because that’s not what the game called for. So that’s the beauty of Team USA and FIBA and this whole experience. Every game has been somebody different.”
Nonetheless, to listen to Curry’s facet of the story was to appreciate this function has been an enormous adjustment for him. Whereas he entered the Serbia sport capturing simply 35.7 p.c from the sphere and 25 p.c from three (5 of 20), he had additionally averaged simply seven pictures per sport. That context, the truth that this workforce makes it so difficult for thus many nice gamers to discover a approach to play like they do with their NBA squads, is commonly misplaced within the dialogue.
“I haven’t had many opportunities,” Curry stated so plainly. “I haven’t shot the ball well the whole tournament, but it doesn’t waver your confidence to meet the moment.”
And did he ever.
When one of many best basketball video games of all time was over, James — who was part of the ’04 workforce the USA Basketball program would reasonably everybody neglect — threw the ball into the air and appeared down to search out Curry ready to hug him with unbridled pleasure. It was a surreal scene in each method, the sight of those two NBA rivals sharing the type of reminiscence nobody might have imagined when their Cavs and Warriors groups have been battling for all these years within the finals.
GO DEEPER
LeBron James, Steph Curry had a ‘healthy resentment’ — Olympics provide one thing new
So, I requested James, the place does this sport rank by way of sheer emotion?
“I mean, it’s up there,” stated James, the four-time champion and Los Angeles Lakers star whose triple-double (16 factors, 12 rebounds and 10 assists) performed an enormous half within the win. “I mean, I’m 39 years old, going into my 22nd season. I don’t know how many opportunities or moments I’m gonna get like this, to be able to compete for something big and play in big games.”
This sport was greater than huge. It was downright magical, with all this historical past tied up between the gamers who matter most throwing in the towel for the sake of their nationwide satisfaction. 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 performance,” stated Durant, who pressured Bogdanović into a vital backcourt violation with 1:34 left and hit a nasty jumper with 34 seconds remaining that put Crew USA up 93-89. “Dang, (Curry) was tough. He felt like he was struggling throughout the whole tournament, and we always said each night it could be somebody different (every game). And tonight, he showed up in a way that, man…”
Durant virtually couldn’t discover the phrases.
“Shot after shot, getting a steal and then finishing with the layup,” he stated. “He was everywhere tonight. It was one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen him play.”
Required Studying
(High photograph of Stephen Curry and Aleksa Avramović: Ezra Shaw / Getty Photos)
