The USA has played Serbia twice in just more than three weeks and won both in laughers by a total of 52 points.
There was the 26-point thrashing in an exhibition game in Abu Dhabi when Stephen Curry looked like his vintage self with 26 points. Then, in the first group-stage game of the Paris Olympics for both teams, the USA again won by 26, this time behind 24 from a just-returned Kevin Durant.
Don’t expect that on Thursday in the medal round — Serbia will play the USA far more closely.
This stacked American roster is going to have to put together its best game to date to advance to the gold medal game. (Thursday’s medal-round showdown vs. Serbia is at 3 p.m. ET, a game watch on the USA Network, stream on Peacock, and follow along on a live blog at NBCOlympics.com.)
Why? It’s a lot more than just “Serbia has Nikola Jokic.”
Although, Serbia has Nikola Jokic — he remains the best player walking the face of the earth — and they lean into him in a heliocentric offense. In the Olympics meeting between these teams, Serbia played the USA even in Jokic’s 30:45 minutes, but the USA was +26 in the other 9:15 — expect more Jokic minutes and better play from the rest of the Serbs on Thursday.
We should focus on that first Olympic meeting and throw out what happened in Abu Dhabi — Serbia was playing on the second night of a back-to-back against a rested USA squad, plus Bodanovic was out for Serbia. If this meeting happened in a January NBA game, we’d call it a “schedule makers loss” and ignore it. Do the same here.
In that first Paris Olympics meeting, the USA won thanks in part due to unsustainably hot shooting — the USA was a blistering 18-of-32 (56.3%) from 3 in that game, smoking even for them (meanwhile Serbia hit just 24.3% despite good looks). Specifically, the USA got bailed out by Durant, who came off the bench for 24 points and started off hitting 8-of-8 from the floor.
There is no shortage of shooting talent on the USA roster, but expect their percentage to fall back to earth a little on Thursday while Serbia will shoot better. Part of that is because Bogdanovic is playing much better. He had 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting in that Olympic meeting, but he has improved with each game and the USA should expect much more out of him, putting pressure on the USA defense.
That defense is why the USA is and should remain the favorites — they were fantastic at fighting over screens in the Olympic matchup against Serbia, plus they knew their personnel (which…