When the bracket developed for the elimination games in men’s basketball at the 2024 Olympic Games, it was quite clear who’d gotten the roughest draw (sorry, Canada) and who’d earned the pass to the medal rounds (U-S-A! U-S-A!)
The USA Basketball men drew Brazil. They are 9-0 in Olympic competition against Brazil – oh, no, wait, it’s 10-0 after a 122-87 thrashing – a team that entered Paris 2024 with one of the lowest percentages of active NBA players in the competition.
The bigger question as Tuesday dawned was whom the U.S. would face in the semifinals, and the answer is Serbia, a team they’ve defeated twice, badly, since gathering in July to begin their Olympic journey.
On this day, though, the U.S. took care of the business assigned. It’s unclear whether limiting their turnovers to 11 – down from an average of 14 in pool play, and many more in their exhibition series – was a product of the opposition or better attention to detail.
Keeping that number low will help in the biggest games.
Onto the player ratings.
MORE: Full schedule for USA men’s and women’s basketball at the 2024 Olympics
Starters
LeBron James (power forward): 9
Should he have earned a 10? With the same effort against a better opponent, probably. But you can only play the course…
