The victory for all time, the one that would live as long as basketball exists, was felt in the air - Serbia held a basketball lesson for more than 35 minutes with one of the strongest teams of the United States of America in history, but did not have the strength for the final shot...
In the last quarter, the "dream team" showed class, turned things around on the floor of the "Bersi Arena" and advanced to another final of the Olympic Games - 95:91.
Svetislav Pešić's boys played basketball to remember, so it was clear from the start that this would be a complicated evening for the Americans... With an incredible defense and an attack in which there were practically no mistakes, after 14 minutes and a great action by Nikola Jokić, Serbia made the scoreboard reads a whopping 42:25.
Stef Kari played a big match, but Svetislav Pešić's boys repelled all the attacks of the NBA stars for a long time, and after a three-pointer and an additional free kick by Marko Gudurić at the end of the third period, they had a score of 76:61.
However, the last 10 minutes showed how good the biggest NBA stars can be when they get going...
The hero of the last Games in Tokyo, Kevin Durant, woke up, and after his three-pointer, and immediately Devin Buker's goal outside the 6,75 line, the Americans finally started to breathe - with seven minutes to go, it was 78:75.
Serbia struggled even then, but did not have a solution for Joel Embiid - the center who decided to play for the USA before these Games showed why this country wanted him so much under the basket.
The guy born in Cameroon first scored "two plus one" for 84:80, and then two more points, so that one of the greatest LeBron James "dream team" would finally bring the tie - 84:84 at three and a half minutes to the end .
Who knows what direction this game would have gone in the end if Ognjen Dobrić had hit a three-pointer after that when no one was guarding him...
Only immediately after that, on the other side, Kari showed for the first time in his career how to shoot for three points - he scored a "crazy" three-pointer (his ninth of the match) and it seems that even then (with two and a half minutes left) he decided end of this match (87:86).
Until the end, the legend of Golden State scored both for two points and from the penalty line and thus put an end to his memorable game and prevented a great miracle in Paris.
In the end, Curry finished the match with 36 points, Embiid with 19, and James reached a triple-double - 16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
With Serbia, captain Bogdan Bogdanović played an excellent match with 20 points, Nikola Jokić was also great with 17, with 11 assists and five rebounds, while Aleksa Avramović led the Eagles with 15 points.
Paris will thus have a replay from Tokyo in the final, as the USA and France will fight for the gold on Saturday from 21.30:11. Much earlier that day, from XNUMX o'clock, Serbia and Germany will play for the bronze medal.
Bonus video:
