Pressure happens to others – Team USA are busy having fun

Basketball LeBron James has invested completely into Team USA’s campaign

CHRISTINA PAHNKE/GETTY IMAGES

Kevin Durant is unplayable at times as Americans dismantle rivals Serbia 110-84 in riotous pantomime

29 Jul 2024 - The Guardian

Jonathan Liew Stade Pierre Mauroy

Perhaps the pivotal moment in this game – tonally, if not competitively – came right at the end of the third quarter. Anthony Edwards sends Nikola Jokic to the shoe shop with an outrageous feint and slip, drains a simple two, and as he peels away he sees pretty much the entire bench doing impressions of him, spinning and reeling, consumed in fits of laughter. That, in hindsight, was probably the point at which a potentially tricky Olympic basketball opener against the world’s No 4 side dissolved fully into riotous, uproarious pantomime.

So no, it’s fair to say Team USA did not get the memo. They are not burdened by your expectations. They are not keeping themselves up at night worrying about how they measure up against 1992. They have not been reading your angsty tweets (with the exception of KD, who almost certainly has). The result: three quarters of pure business, one quarter of pure pleasure, a potential medal rival not simply dispatched but shoved disdainfully aside, a game that was basically conceived at its outset as a series of memes.

And so we had LeBron storming around the court like a berserker, possessed by that very LeBron kind of anger, where he’s kicking your butt, but he’s only doing it for your own good. We had Steph Curry sinking a no-look three in the final seconds and walking away while the ball was still in the air, while a nearby security guard gawped in pure amazement. We had Kevin Durant putting in one of the all-time great shooting performances in the history of Olympic basketball, and doing it while essentially grinning the entire time.

Perhaps the very concept of US Olympic basketball in the modern era has its roots in the decadent pleasures of mass entertainment. This is a sports team built like an American consumer product, a masterclass in basically giving the people everything they want, all at once, for as long as they want it. Here’s Guardians of the Galaxy. And the Avengers. Topped with marshmallows and chocolate bits. And bacon. Served with cheerleaders. And cupholders.

If this is what it’s like to watch, then what must it feel like on the inside of what might well be the greatest roster of basketball talent ever assembled? How fun must that be? “That’s the beauty of this experience,” a beaming Curry said afterwards. “Rekindling some old flames. Playing with guys I’ve never played with before, like LeBron and AD [Anthony Davis]. I’m having the time of my life.” Edwards, meanwhile, was even more succinct. “I got to play alongside KD, so I’m good,” he said.

And of all the stars in this constellation, Durant feels like the key here, and in ways that are not always immediately apparent. Thirty-five years old and with three Olympic golds already in the cabinet, Durant was unplayable for large parts of this game, coming off the bench in the first half and shooting eight from eight, five of them from beyond the perimeter, 21 points in total.

The highlight came right on the buzzer, a miracle fadeaway after James had put the ball back in play with just three seconds on the clock. Never before had he made 20 points from the field at 100% in any half of his NBA career. But the luckless Serbs were simply the latest team to discover that international KD – even an aging KD, a KD recovering from injury, a KD who missed all the warm-ups – is a subtly different proposition. In the land of fine dining, Durant came to eat.

But perhaps the less tangible quality Durant offers is that he gets what this is about. A bona fide national team legend to go with everything he has achieved in the NBA, Durant gets that this thing – this concept – only really works if it’s fun. That a grizzled, snarling, salty America can obviously still turn up and win, but would still somehow struggle to capture the essence of the experience. That at its heart this is not so much a voyage of conquest as discovery: pushing the boundaries, turning the vibes up to 10 and seeing what you can create together. “He’s my favourite player in the world,” Edwards said. “I think he’s the greatest. Any time he steps on the floor, he’s got it going.”

The irony was that without Durant, this might have been a good deal tighter. The US started rusty, Serbia opening up a 10-2 gap, Joel Embiid struggling on defence and getting needlessly booed by the French crowd (he qualifies to play for France, but rejected their overtures). But with Durant purring, Jrue Holiday and Bam Adebayo immense in defence and James offering his usual barrelling, brilliant alpha-male energy, they always had something in reserve.

“Talking about Kevin Durant as a six-man tells you how good this team can be,” Curry said. “You could take any five out of us 12, and it’s an all-star, hall-of-fame lineup. We just have to play like it.”

Serbia, anchored by the three-time NBA MVP Jokic, played a physical game but increasingly struggled for rhythm as the game progressed, making too many bad decisions. They shot 42% from the field and just 24% from the three, with Bogdan Bogdanovic having a particularly difficult night. But then, as is becoming increasingly clear, pressure is not something the US feel, it’s something they apply to others. Serbia had no answers here, and it’s not immediately clear if anyone else will.