Though Team USA still is the best in the world, the team it left home is even better.
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Now they need one more to stay on top. The team were so often forced to shoot from outside but were able to convert just four from 31 three-point shots at a percentage of 13 per cent.
The U.S. advanced to its third straight gold-medal game win an 82-76 victory Friday, another tight matchup between the teams that met in the last two championship games.
Spain, runner-up to Team U.S.A.in 1984, 2008, and 2012, has never before finished third at the Olympics. Unlike him, however, they took most of their chances from distance, rarely challenging the longer, quicker USA defenders one on one in the paint.
“It’s like making a comparison with a club competition if a team is 50 times your budget and you manage to compete and to stay in the game to the very end, which is an accomplishment”, Spanish coach Sergio Scariolo said.
“We always were on their tail”.
U.S. has now won 24 consecutive Olympic men’s basketball games and will seek its third consecutive gold medal on Sunday.
Gasol said after he believed Spain missed its best chance to beat the U.S. He wants everything. Corrupt summer coaches and sketchy street agents are part of American basketball, but so are guys like Klay Thompson, and that’s why the US still plays the best basketball in the world.
“We expected the same today, and we got it”.
“If we would have been a little sharper with our shots, moved the ball a little better, boxed out a little more – it’s a two or three-possession game”. In the first quarter, Spain’s Rudy Fernandez ran into a hard screen set by DeMarcus Cousins and struggled back to his feet, clutching his chest and wincing in pain.
The uneven, stop-and-go pace of the opening reached a nadir during the second quarter, which saw no less than six technical fouls assessed and found the United States at their most vulnerable.
“It’s the most different game I’ve coached internationally”.
The calls kept both sides wondering how sensitive the calls would become. Friday’s rematch in the penultimate stage lacked the luster of those meetings – Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka were unavailable for Spain while LeBron James and several other top-flight Americans opted to sit out Rio – but you wouldn’t have guessed it as the tense, chippy affair unfolded before a rollicking crowd of 10,455 at Carioca Arena 1.
The Americans never trailed nemesis Spain, and never for a minute did they appear primed for an upset.
“He played a great game”, USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
The second half (37 points on 39 possessions) was particularly ugly.
For Spain, veteran forward Pau Gasol netted 23 points to lead all scorers. Whenever he got the ball down low, his teammates cleared out and let him go to work.
“He’s got back-to-the basket game and a face-up game and he can shoot the long ball”, said DeAndre Jordan, the toughest US defender in the post.
Jordan’s skill set isn’t necessarily a great fit for the global game, which values spacing and perimeter shooting.
“Based on this game and also the previous game against the United States, I think we can hope we are going to match up pretty good”, said Serb centre Miroslav Raduljica.
That energy came on both ends of the floor.
“I tried to push him off the block and just play him with length”, he added. Australia and Spain will square off to start the day, though, playing for the bronze.
“When you’re talking about a team with such bigger potential than yours, more than thinking what you [needed to do] to win, you have to be happy with what you did to reduce the gap”, Scariolo said. We are winners. It s painful. We came here to win a medal. We’ll watch the film and learn quickly and have a look at ourselves.
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The Americans? They’re right back where everyone thought they’d be.
