Paris: USA staved off France 98-87 to win its fifth straight Olympic men’s basketball gold medal at the Paris Games in front of a raucous crowd at Bercy Arena.
It was the 17th gold medal in 20 Olympics the Americans have participated in. The five consecutive golds is the second-longest streak for the men to the US winning the first seven Olympic competitions.
Stephen Curry finished with 24 points on eight 3-pointers and had five assists. Kevin Durant, the all-time leading men’s or women’s scorer in US Olympic basketball history, started his only game of this Olympiad and had 15 points, four rebounds and four assists.
LeBron James, the NBA’s career scoring leader and U.S. Olympic assists leader, added 14 points, 10 assists and six rebounds.
Devin Booker had 15 points and six rebounds and Anthony Davis had eight points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots for the U.S,who are 144-5 in Olympic history.
The gold just added to the legacy of a U.S. roster that included players with 15 NBA championships, four with NBA MVPs, seven of the last 13 NBA Finals MVPs and four members of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team (James, Curry, Durant and Davis).
This US team has been compared to the 1992 Dream Team, the first to have NBA players in the Olympics and easily won the gold medal. While the Dream Team inspired other countries to improve their programs, the US has ruled in the Olympics all but once since.
–IANS
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