“We are f … champs!” – the players rejoiced after the last siren USA Team. They jumped, hugged, waved flags. Gregg Popovich’s face – the manager who had been watching the team playfully throughout the tournament – was finally filled with a sincere smile after a job well done.
Watch the video
Polish boxing has been waiting for the Olympic medal since 1992. “System changes are needed”
–
In the final, his players won 87:82, experiencing only a few moments when they could worry about the result. The last one – 30 seconds before the end, when the French got closer to five points, but they couldn’t hit the key moments.
Not Dream, but definitely the Team
For most of the match, the Americans were in the lead, although for a long time – it was the norm in Tokyo for them – they could not find the rhythm. They started badly, were losing 4:10 or 6:12. They missed the first eight attempts in three. But once they shifted up a gear, they were unstoppable again.
It is the fourth consecutive gold of the Olympics for them – after the victories in Beijing, London and Rio.
Before the Tokyo tournament, they were in an ungrateful position. On the one hand, their upcoming triumph would not be regarded as a success, but obviously the Americans only had their robot recovered and would return with gold.
On the other – they came without the biggest stars, after two sparring failures (previously it was unmistakable), tired of the long, unusual season of the NBA. Devin Booker and Khris Middleton boarded the plane to Tokyo straight off the dance floor, ending the finals several dozen hours before the first game against France.
In a word: these were not the conditions for creating another Dream Team. “It’s not a dream for a long time, but there is a struggle to be a Team” – we wrote in Sport.pl just before the first meeting in Tokyo.
The Americans did not always look like a team here, but the scale of their potential turned out to be incomparable to the other teams. Turnover gods Rio did not play a complex, tactically complicated basketball. Instead, they used the talent of their stars: they played isolation actions, one-on-one. This turned out to be the key – also in the final.
Although it is not that for the French, snatching the gold was a mission impossible. At this tournament, the world’s third team proves that they have a patent for the USA Team, they won against him in the group 83:76. On the other hand, the Americans have never lost to the same team twice at the Olympics.
In the first half of the finals, the French scored as many as 10 losses – a statistic almost disqualifying at this level – but at the end of the half they still jumped over the Americans by five points. Trjk will hit the leader of Nando De Colo, the advantage of growth under the basket is used by the powerful Rudy Gobert.
On the other hand, they played too conservatively, old fashioned. They constructed actions for a long time, they drove endlessly. For fast-paced NBA fans, it can be a murder. Maybe that was the idea of coach Vincent Collet?
Durant – the best in the world
His players – though after the end of the siren they were pacing – achieved great success in Tokyo. They won in the group with the Americans, in the finals with Sowenia they fought one of the greatest battles in the history of the Olympic Games and won one point. They only stumbled in the final.
And if he was looking for one reason why they failed, he would be – surely – Kevin Durant.
The American media argue that he is the best player on the planet today. And this summer, he’ll do much more than winning two championship rings with the Golden State Warriors.
Then, as they argue, Durant put his hand to what would have happened anyway, with or without him in the composition. In Tokyo, he would be the undisputed leader. Not only will it lead to the triumph of teams without its biggest potential stars – LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard or Stephen Curry. Most of all, it will do so in an era when European teams are no longer chasing Americans, only Americans have the biggest stars in their roster: including the NBA leagues.
Not to mention the fact that the player Brooklyn Nets (the day before the end decided to extend the contract by four years, worth $ 198 billion) became the top scorer in the history of Team USA during the Games, ahead of Carmelo Anthony‘ego. Before the clash with France, he collects 406 points.
After the first two weaker matches – at the opening with France, a disappointment, he scored 10 points, with Iran he did not have to make any effort and he had the same gain – he should shoulder the weight that was borne by the entire American team. The Americans were finalized 23, 29 and 23 points in three consecutive matches.
And another 29 – gold. Third Olympic Games in the career of 32-year-old Durant. And maybe not the last.
The medal ceremony is only after the match for third place. At 13:00, Slovenia will play against Australia.
–
