The United States (US) faced off against France in the Men’s Basketball Gold Medal game. This was a rematch in which the United States were looking to avenge their only loss during the group stage of the Olympics . The US made it to the Gold Medal game by defeating Spain and Australia. For France their road consisted of them going through Italy and Slovenia, who was led by Luka Doncic.
The game was highly contested Kevin Durant finished with a game high 29 points. This includes 21 in the first half. The other key to the game was the US team's tenacious defense forcing 18 turnovers. In the US’s 87 to 82 Victory Durant surpassed 100 points in his 3rd straight Olympics. In addition, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton became the third pair of teammates to win both the NBA Finals and The Olympic Gold Medal in the same year. They joined Kyrie Irving, Lebron James, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen as the only other players to do so.
The biggest takeaway from this basketball tournament is that the United States does still have the best talent in the world. However, the rest of the world is catching up when you speak of some of the better countries and the talent that they produce. Also when you think about the process of the selection of the Olympic team the US is just a collection of star players put together without having any continuity created. Other countries put together the team usually have them together a year prior to Olympics usually in the FIBA World Championships which helps when they play in the Olympics. If we take a similar process where we keep the team together then we don’t have to go through growing pains when you hit the biggest stage.
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