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PARIS — How do you know when you’ve just seen the best basketball game of your life?
How do you take it all in?
Is it the emotion of the moment? Is it the quality of play or the circumstance involved?
Initially, I didn’t really care for the matchup of Team USA and Serbia in the semi-final game of the men’s Olympic tournament. I wasn’t invested in it emotionally. I just thought, like most people, that this would be easy. Even with the great Nikola Jokic playing for Serbia. That the Americans would do what the Americans usually do in Olympic basketball. Make it obvious.
But instead, we got a four-part series, a future documentary, a movie maybe, an on-court highlight or sport of any kind, at its greatest at the Bercy Arena on Thursday night here. This is why the Olympics are different and better than anything else we watch throughout the year.
Because we get games like this one.
And when it ended, with the U.S. coming from behind to barely beat Serbia, who led almost the entire game, all I wanted to do was talk basketball. With somebody. With anybody. Didn’t care if they spoke the language. Just wanted to share what I’d just witnessed. And to ask the question: Was this best game you’ve ever seen?
And if not, what was better?
I wish I was home and had the game taped the game so I could recapture the final moments in detail, how the Americans came back, led by Steph Curry, an unlikely Joel Embiid, Kevin Durant and of course, an overzealous LeBron James.
That’s who coach Steve Kerr turned to when it looked like it was over for Team USA. They trailed by eight at the end of the first quarter. They trailed by 11 at the half. They were down 13 points at the end of three-quarters.
Curry hit the first basket of the game to give Team USA a 2-0 lead and he hit a three-pointer six minutes in to give the Americans a 15-13 lead. And for the next 31 minutes, it looked as though Serbia would play France for gold.
It looked like a Dream Team of Dream Teams until Curry hit a three to give Team USA an 87-86 lead. The first lead, the second lead, the third and final lead, all Curry.
“I am really humbled to have been a part of this game,” said coach Kerr after the 95-91 win by Team USA. “It’s one of the greatest basketball games I’ve ever been a part of.”
With five minutes to play, though, Jokic hit a basket and Serbia went up by seven points, 84-77. It was then, an inspired Embiid, being booed all tournament by the French fans, became unstoppable.
He was fouled on a basket, made a three point play, and Serbia led 84-80.
The game might have been won on the next shot. Bogdan Bogdanovic, the excellent shooter from the Atlanta Hawks, had an uncontested three – and missed. Had he made that shot, it would have 87-80 with 4:34 to go.
Embiid then made another basket and on Serbia’s next possesion, he blocked a shot, and the US only trailed 84-82.
Again, a three point possibility for Serbia. Again, a miss for Vasilije Micic, who played last season in Charlotte.
LeBron tied the game with one of those unstoppable drives that only he can do. It was 84-84. Tie game. Three minutes and 41 seconds to go.
Curry hit a three — one of nine in the game — he finished with 36 points, 17 more than any other American, 16 more than anyone on Serbia. With 2:07 to play, it was 87-86 for Team USA They would not relinquish the lead after that.
And then the best of the Americans, the best players of this generation, almost any generation, went to work in tandem. A LeBron basket. A Curry steal and basket. A Durant created jumper. And then Jokic scored to make it 93-91.
I’ve never written a basketball story this way. With this much play by play and back and forth. But every moment here mattered. Every decision was enormous. Every shot had implications. You watch it unfold and try to take it all in and you can and cannot believe exactly what you’re seeing when you’re seeing it.
And all the while Curry was smiling, like he knows he’s in charge, his mouthguard dangling outside his mouth as usual, part of him cocky, part of him fully comprehending just how great he can be.
In the final five minutes, Team USA outscored Serbia 18-7. Curry had seven of those points. Embiid had five. LeBron had four, Durant had two.
“That was a God-like performance,” Durant said of Curry’s giant game. At one time, Serbia led by 17 and Jokic may have only scored 17 points, but the entire offence worked with him and around him.
“They played a perfect game,” said Kerr. “And they forced us to reach the highest level of competition that we could find.” Some talked afterwards about a Villanova game against North Carolina and another one between Villanova against Georgetown.
I have no basis of comparison. I don’t know if I’d ever seen anything better than Kawhi Leonard play 52 minutes on a bad leg against Milwaukee in a playoff series and score 36 points in a double overtime win that saved the Raptors championship season.
That was amazing. As games go, this might have been better.
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