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With one more win, Kyrie Irving’s golden summer will be complete. After a difficult NBA regular season coming off knee surgery, Irving performed at a historic level in the NBA playoffs, culminating in a championship. Just two months later, he can add a gold medal to the mix. All that’s left is a win over Serbia at 2:45 ET on Sunday afternoon.
In the bigger picture, this would be a third straight Olympic gold medal for Team USA after disaster in 2004. It would come with their best two players, LeBron James and Stephen Curry missing action. The game continues to grow globally. France is good and young. Spain remains strong. Slowly but surely, Australia and Canada are improving. Even so, the United States continues to lead the world in basketball.
If they win today.
It isn’t guaranteed. Serbia just crushed Australia in the semi-final. The United States has played mediocre to bad defense for a lot of the tournament. Coach K has deployed offense heavy lineups, and then defense heavy lineups without enough shooting at various points. There have been games where individuals haven’t shot the ball well that normally shoot the ball very well. If it’s a seven game series, it’s tough to see the US losing. But anything can happen in one game.
Let’s see if Kyrie can help his country bring home another gold.