For the first four games of the 2024 Summer Olympics, it looked as if the picturesque jumper of Stephen Curry had been lost in the midst of all of Team USA's pre-Olympics travels. In Team USA's three Group Play games and in their first Knockout Round game versus Brazil, the game's greatest shooter was a very un-Curry-like 5-for-19 from three-point range. But with the lights shining brightest, Steph unleashed a barrage of three-pointers in Team USA's final two games, connecting on 17 of his 27 attempts in a pair of nail-biter wins over Serbia and France.
After knocking down a few final back-breaking, Gold-clinching triples against France, Curry celebrated in typical Steph Curry fashion, hitting the partisan French crowd with the “Night Night” hand gesture… or in their native French, “Nuit Nuit.” Following the win, Stephen Curry was spotted wearing a jumper with a visual aid for all of the French fans who are not bilingual.
Not that Stephen Curry needed to prove anything else to anyone, but capturing the Gold Medal does feel like a particularly nice capper to one of the greatest basketball careers we've ever had the pleasure of watching unfold. Curry has spoken about what winning an Olympic Gold Medal would mean to him, and after the 98-87 win over France, he explained that the actual experience of getting the job done was better than he even imagined.
“It’s everything I imagined and more,” Curry said after the game, according to Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “Just the excitement of doing it with the guys in our locker room, we all signed up for the mission to continue USA basketball dominance. Obviously I understood it was going to be a really tough task with some great teams that we’re going to have to face and there’s a sense of relief at the end, but it’s more a sense of accomplishment obviously knowing what we were able to do.”
Stephen Curry leads Team USA to 5th straight Olympic Gold Medal
In the end, it wasn't just that Stephen Curry was the one taking and making the big shots for Team USA. He's certainly qualified to do so. It was that in that moment, while sharing the floor with superstars such as LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and Devin Booker, Curry was confident and commanding enough to call his own number in the Team USA huddle.
“Down the stretch, Steph took over,” Team USA head coach Steve Kerr said after the game, per Vardon. “He actually suggested in the timeout with about three minutes left, he said, ‘Lemme run a clear side pick and roll with LeBron and we’ll spread the floor.’ I said, ‘OK, let’s do that,' because I’ve seen it before and it usually works out well.’
I'd say so. Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors have won four NBA Titles in the last decade, and now, one of the most successful coach-star duos in basketball history has won a Gold Medal together too.
Follow Us
Subscribe