U.S. beats Brazil 122-87, advances to semifinals
PARIS — Most of the Olympic men’s basketball quarterfinals were stressful for the favorites, with the top seeds in the first three games falling behind by double digits and one (Canada) going down in an upset.
Team USA? Not so much.
The Americans routed Brazil on Tuesday night at Bercy Arena, 122-87, to advance to a semifinal on Thursday against Serbia. France will face Germany in the other semifinal.
Kerr: 'Serbia is really good, we can't get lulled to sleep because we beat them twice'
Steve Kerr spoke about facing Serbia in the semifinal after beating them in both in the group stage and in a pre-Olympic friendly: “Serbia is really good. We can't get lulled to sleep because we beat them twice. We have to be prepared for their best effort. We've got to think about, what are they going to do differently?
"Every game is so different and unique. You never know when the ball's going in, when it's not going in. We have to be prepared."
On LeBron James' passing ability and leadership: "He's kind of our point guard, really, with this team and he's playing at such a high level and obviously he's got so much talent around him, so the game makes a lot of sense when he's controlling it.
“Every day at practice, he's so locked in. He's so vocal. Every film session, every walkthrough. The way he talks, the way he leads. He's clearly the leader of the group and he brings the best out of everybody.”
On the challenge of having so many talented scorers on the team: “There's no real challenge with it other than just reminding the team that that's the beauty and the strength of our team is that it can be any one of these guys there. They all have to carry their franchises individually when they go back to the NBA. So we know they're capable of carrying our team on any given day, but we don't know who it's going to be and that's the strength of the team. As long as we play the right way and move the ball, somebody's going to get hot."
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Booker led U.S. in scoring
Devin Booker, who led the U.S. with 18 points today, broke down his performance afterwards: "Trying to knock down the open shot, defending at a high level, little stuff. Trying to get offensive rebounds, don't turn the ball over. You never know when your time's going to be."
On how USA's offensive spacing worked against Brazil: "Every team has different coverages. (Brazil) kind of played a college style where they're hard-hedging (against the pick-and-roll), so when we drove the big (player) to the rim, it forced the rotation and I was open on the back side. When you have shooters like Steph, playmakers like 'Bron, you're going to find yourself open."
On how USA has improved throughout the Olympics: "It's just time invested, experience together. We had our friendly matches, and I think once pool play started, we took it to a whole other level and now that it's medal games, I think we have to raise it another level."
LeBron James also spoke about Booker's performance afterwards: "That's what our team is built on, depth, and any night we can have anybody get it going as far as the scoring load, and Book had it from the start all the way to the finish."
Durant on breaking record, facing Serbia
Kevin Durant spoke about passing Lisa Leslie to become the all-time leading scorer for the United States at the Olympics: "Records are meant to be broken, so somebody will come along and do the same. We're just focused on trying to win this gold.
"I love how we're defending and talking. I love how the first unit got us going tonight. Started us off well, and second unit came in and tried to feed off of that. Teams are going to make runs against us, that's just the nature of the game, but I like how we stayed poised throughout it all."
On facing Serbia next: "Serbia's coming in with some momentum as well, coming back from down 24 points today (against Australia), making big shots down the stretch. We beat them twice already, so you know they're going to be prepared.
"They're just more familiar with us, they understand how we're coming out there, we understand them as well. So it's going to be about who wants it more, to be honest. We can go with film and tendencies and all that stuff as much as we want, which we will do, but at the end of the day, it's about who wants it more."
LeBron James also spoke about Durant breaking Leslie's record: "He was born to play ball and he's simply incredible. I'm happy for him, congratulations to him, super proud of him, and he's got more to go."
LeBron: Winning gold is all I care about
LeBron James spoke about how the United States got off to a better start today than it did in previous games: "It starts with the defensive end. We understand that in order for us to lock down in this tournament it starts on the defensive end and then offensively we've got to continue to help each other spread the ball out and be in a great rhythm."
On having beaten Serbia twice in recent weeks: "Every game is its own test. It don't matter what happened in the first two, it's about what goes down Thursday night. So we need to lock in on our film session tomorrow, lock in during the day on Thursday and then come out and be ready to go."
On the team's mindset: "We understand what the main goal is, and the main goal is for us to win gold. That's all I care about."
Shot chart
The United States dominated points in the paint to the tune of a 48 to 30 advantage, and also made nearly half of its three-pointers.
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Team USA will face Serbia —again
Earlier Tuesday, Serbia recovered from a 24-point deficit to beat Australia, 95-90, in overtime of an absolute barnburner. Nikola Jokić starred with 21 points, 14 rebounds, and nine assists for Serbia; Patty Mills scored 26 points, including a shot that momentarily saved Australia and sent the game to overtime.
The Americans have beaten Serbia comfortably twice this summer. When the U.S. blasted Serbia 105-79 on July 17 in Abu Dhabi, the Serbians had played Australia the night before and Bogdan Bogdanović didn’t play against the Americans. The U.S. made 16 3s and Steph Curry enjoyed what turned out to be easily his best game this summer with 24 points. That game was tied at 40 midway through the second quarter.
In the second game between the two, which was the Olympic opener for both clubs, the U.S. again won handily, 110-84, behind 23 points from Kevin Durant in his 2024 USA debut. But it was a tense first half marked by the Serbians’ relentless ball pressure, which the Americans struggled to handle. The Americans pulled away with 18 3s in that one.
Do they have another big game in store for Serbia?
Embiid 'fine' after rolling ankle and missing second half
Team USA head coach Steve Kerr has said that Joel Embiid approached him at halftime, complaining of a rolled ankle, and was held out for the second half.
“He'll be fine,” Kerr said. “He came to me at halftime and said he rolled his ankle a little bit and so we preferred to make sure he was okay for the next one.”
Looking ahead to U.S. vs Serbia
The semifinal between the United Sates and Serbia will feature the top two teams in this tournament in several statistical categories:
- Overall shooting percentage
- Two-point shooting percentage
- Points scored per game
- Assists per game
- Steals per game
- Defensive rebounds per game
- Fast break points
In each of those categories, the U.S. ranks first ahead of Serbia in second.
Olympic men's basketball semifinal schedule
Both semifinal games will take place Thursday —and both are rematches from the group stage.
France vs. Germany: 5:30 p.m. Paris time | 11:30 a.m. ET | USA Network | Peaco*ck
Serbia vs. United States: 9 p.m. Paris time | 3 p.m. ET | USA Network | Peaco*ck
Team stats
United States 122-87 Brazil
- Field goals: 45/78 - 32/77
- Field goal percentage: 58% - 42%
- Three-pointers: 15/31 - 12/37
- Three-pointer percentage: 48% - 32%
- Free throws: 17/19 - 11/15
- Rebounds: 46 - 34
- Assists: 31 - 24
- Turnovers: 11 - 15
- Steals: 9 - 7
- Blocks: 7 - 2
- Points in the paint: 48 - 30
- Second chance points: 19 - 9
- Bench points: 62 - 34
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Key performers
United States
- Devin Booker: 18 points
- LeBron James: 12 points, 9 assists
- Joel Embiid: 14 points, 7 rebounds
- Anthony Edwards: 17 points
Brazil
- Bruno Caboclo: 30 points, 6 rebounds
- Georginho de Paula: 15 points, 8 rebounds
- Marcelinho Huertas: 9 points, 5 assists
- Leo Meindl: 7 points, 7 assists
LeBron James was the tone-setter
LeBron James was again a ferocious and intimidating mismatch for his opponents. He finished with 12 points and nine assists and three steals, including an absurd, Patrick Mahomes-like pass to Jayson Tatum for an alley-oop at the end of the first half. There certainly isn’t anyone else playing at the Olympics who could throw that pass. Tatum was basically covered but the angle and timing of the throw allowed Tatum to catch it and dunk it over a defender for a 63-36 lead. James' night was cut short when he was elbowed in the face in the third quarter by Brazil's Georginho De Paula.
Otherwise, this was as smooth of a game as the U.S. has played all summer.
Huertas' curtain call
As the seconds ticked down, Brazil point guard Marcelinho Huertas (pictured above on the right) was hugging his teammates in what could be his final international game. The 41-year-old point guard has been a fixture for the national team since 2005. He briefly played in the NBA for the Lakers from 2015-2017 during Kobe Bryant's twilight, but is more well known for his career in Europe, where he became one of the continent's most creative players.
U.S. will face tougher task in semifinal
With Team USA's win over Brazil all but assured, it's worth a reminder that Thursday's semifinal matchup with Serbia will be a much different game. Serbia is much bigger than Brazil, has much more star power with Nikola Jokić and will be out for revenge after losing twice to Team USA in the past month. Don't expect much from this quarterfinal to carry over into that matchup.
The U.S. is leading 114-80 with three minutes left.
In case you're curious, the men's Olympic record for points scored in a game is 156, accomplished by the U.S. against Nigeria in London in 2012. Not quite in reach today.
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Q4 4:58 United States 109-78 Brazil
Bam Adebayo nearly drops a behind-the-back pass from LeBron James as the U.S. turn up the razzle-dazzle on a fast break here in the closing minutes, but he's still able to corral it and slam it home.
Human victory cigar
It's definitely rude to call someone as accomplished as Tyrese Haliburton a human victory cigar, but such is life on a team this stacked.
Anyway, Haliburton makes his first appearance in the game with Team USA up by 27 points on Brazil in the fourth quarter.
Same story once again for USA Basketball statistically: Giving up just over a point per possession defensively, which is good but hardly dominant. But that hardly matters when you score 94 points on 65 trips.
Totally bonkers offense, once again. And the U.S. isn't even losing the possessions battle this time.
