Team USA got off to a strong start in the 2024 Paris Olympics, defeating Serbia 110-84 earlier today. Serbia put up a tough fight, trailing by only nine points heading into halftime. However, Team USA pulled away in the second half and sealed a decisive victory. One statistic shows how Team USA was able to overcome NBA superstar Nikola Jokic and the Serbian national team.
The on-off splits for Jokic do a great job of telling the story of the game. According to BasketNews on X, formerly Twitter, the score of the game was 81-81 in the 31 minutes that Jokic was on the court. However, in the nine minutes that Jokic was not on the court, Team USA dominated with a score of 29-3.
Jokic quite clearly made the difference for Serbia. This should be no surprise as Jokic is one of the best basketball players on the planet, so the expectation was that he could elevate the performance of the entire team. However, he was not enough on his own to surpass Team USA.
Jokic scored 20 points and added five rebounds and eight assists in the losing effort. Bogdan Bogdanovic was the next best contributor, scoring 14 points and adding six rebounds in 28 minutes.
Meanwhile, LeBron James and Kevin Durant led the way for Team USA. Each of them put up over 20 points in the decisive victory.
Team USA faces another tough matchup at Olympics against a surging South Sudan
Team USA will face a monumental task in their next game, going up against a surging South Sudan.
South Sudan is the newest country in the world. They got their first Olympic basketball victory today in a 90-79 game over Puerto Rico.
The fans back in South Sudan burst into a raucous celebration after the historic win. South Sudan's victory was just the second win by any African nation at the Olympics since 1996.
South Sudan had a chip on their shoulder going into the game. The wrong national anthem was played to introduce South Sudan, which player Nuni Omot said gave the team extra fuel.
“It gave us fuel. It gave us fuel to the fire,” Omot said after the game via the Associated Press. “Obviously, we felt disrespected when that happened. … I feel like for us we’ve got to continue to show the world what we’re capable of.”
This could be a problem for Team USA. South Sudan already proved their talent in the Olympic warmup games. In fact, Team USA narrowly survived in a 101-100 win against South Sudan in an Olympic warmup game.
There is no doubt that South Sudan will bring their best game against Team USA on Wednesday.
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