The United States has won gold in the Olympics in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Advertisement
“I’m all for raising the bar for global basketball”, Colangelo said, according to USA Today.
The Serbs, beaten just 94-91 in the group game, had hoped for a similarly close contest but were up to the task only in the first quarter as they lost nearly as heavily against the USA as in the 2014 World Cup final which ended 129-92.
Coach Krzyzewski retires as the first men’s basketball coach to have the honor of winning three Olympic gold medals.
Carmelo Anthony picked up his third gold medal in his fourth Olympics and said this would be his last Games.
Earlier in the day, Spain won the bronze medal with an 89-88 win over Australia.
This one played out more like the teams’ previous meeting in the 2014 Fiba Basketball World Cup final where Team USA won a 129-92 blowout in Madrid.
Dominating in gymnastics and bringing home five medals, 19-year-old American gymnast Simone Biles was selected to be the flag bearer for the closing ceremonies Sunday evening.
Krzyzewski took the Americans back to the top and leaves with them there after becoming the first coach to win three Olympic gold medals.
A far cry from the 91 points that Serbia scored against the U.S.in group play, in the gold medal final, the club could only muster 43 points after three quarters, leading to the inevitable 96×66 win.
Durant led the team with 155 points over eight games, scoring 71 of them in the final three matchups. Nemanja Nedovic paced Serbia with 14 points.
When the US wants to prove a point and shut up its critics, no one can come close to even making a basketball game interesting against them.
“They are superstars. If you let them play like they want, they will kill you”, guard Stefan Markovic said. The Americans pushed a four-point first quarter lead to 23 points by halftime. Krzyzewski was 88-1 as the U.S. head coach. Nine U.S. players put points on the board in the third, including two more 3s from Taurasi and six points from Elena Delle Donne, who tallied 10 in the game.
Thompson scored 17 in the first half, including a 3-pointer with 26 seconds left that made it 45-39 at the break.
Speaking after the US men’s basketball team won a third straight gold medal with a rout of Serbia, USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said other countries need to find a way to be more competitive. The lead allowed Irving to savor the moment with his college head coach, Mike Krzyzewski.
Stefan Markovic, probably Serbia’s best player, hinted that his team knew what was coming and might have been intimidated. “We figured it out offensively and defensively and came out with the gold”.
The U.S. continued to pour it on in the second half, making it a smooth gold-medal game after an Olympics filled with bumps in the road.
Sure, the rest of the world has gotten better at basketball and a lot of them have NBA players. He stole a pass and flew down for a soaring fastbreak slam that might have been this USA team’s signature moment. You never know what’s going to happen in four years. However, these are actual National Basketball Association players, so who are the fans to tell them what is more or less valuable?
Advertisement
Gone was the all-offense, all-action play that turned the last two gold-medal games into classics. “If anything, I think that was the best thing for us”.
