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 shooters to leave open and which ones to close out on). Give Steve Kerr and his staff — Tyronn Lue, Erik Spoelstra and Mark Few — credit, they had their team prepared.
That said, there were things Jokic and Serbia were able to exploit, and on Thursday Joel Embiid has to be better than he was in the last meeting (or Kerr has to go more quickly to Anthony Davis). While size and bulk matter against Jokic, quickness and mobility matter more. Embiid wasn’t moving as well in that game and if he’s not on Thursday — because of his ankle discomfort — Kerr cannot hesitate to make a change.
Against Embiid in particular, any time Serbia involved Jokic in the action — pick-and-roll or dribble handoff — they often got good looks on backdoor cuts with the USA rotations being a step slow, or the USA defense collapsed and left shooters open. Serbia just didn’t make the USA pay by knocking down shots.
Expect that to be different in the medal round.
One thing to watch is how Kerr adjusts the rotation. Against Serbia in the opener, and again in the knockout-round game against Brazil on Tuesday, Kerr started Curry, Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker, LeBron James and Embiid in a three-guard lineup. That meeting was the game where Kerr did not play Jayson Tatum. It might be time to switch that up and give Tatum key minutes (maybe start him in place of Booker?) because of his size and defensive versatility while playing small less. Booker has been fantastic for Team USA — he led the team in scoring against Brazil — but Serbia may be a more Tatum-favored matchup.
The other thing that really worked for the USA against Serbia was LeBron’s passing — and the Americans will need that again. LeBron has been the tone setter for the USA and the Olympics meeting was an example of that. When Serbia started to double him, his passing carved them up and broke the game open.
The USA should be favorites and the expectations — both internally and externally — that they will win and advance to play for the gold medal on Saturday are fair. The Americans should win.
Just don’t expect them to coast in another cakewalk win — Serbia and Jokic are going to make the Americans earn it.
