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PARIS — “A Gold Medal in Four Acts,” written by and starring Wardell Stephen Curry.
Stephen Curry embraced Kevin Durant at midfield at the Bercy Arena. They both held an American flag, which enveloped them both. They had won two consecutive NBA championships together, when they changed the course of the league by joining forces with the Golden State Warriors. Now they were celebrating something that few people in basketball get to do: win an Olympic gold medal, in another country. And very few people have had to, because in fact it is an away team, with a sold-out crowd doing everything they can to give the beloved French national team an improbable, colossal surprise.
But Curry just wouldn’t allow it.
With four 3-pointers in the final three minutes, on four shots, one more ridiculous than the last, the last one defying all common sense and logic, Curry secured the United States’ fifth consecutive gold medal in men’s basketball, holding off France 98-87. It was Durant’s fourth gold medal. His place as the greatest player in American international basketball history was secured. This was Curry’s first gold. At 36, it may be his only gold. But he wanted it so, so badly, and he had wanted it for a long, long time.
“We always say, do what the game calls for and what you feel in the flow,” Curry said afterward, after making eight 3-pointers Saturday to add to the nine he made in the Americans’ incredible semifinal win over Serbia.
LeBron James was a worthy MVP of the tournament. What he did in those two weeks, at 39 years old, is simply indescribable. But Curry was the indispensable man in the last two games, when the medals were on the line. That he did it after not shooting well at all in the group stage is just part of the Curry legend.
GALLING DEEPER
‘Everything I imagined and more’: Team USA’s gold medal game seals NBA star’s legacy
“Coach (Steve Kerr) reminded me at one point, early on, that the game will come to you if you let it,” Curry said. “And even if I missed shots, just stay engaged. And that’s contributed to me locking in these last two games, because the game has required me to make shots and make them. … You just stay confident, stay present and don’t get rattled by the moment.”
There was a reason Curry was so excited — “like a little kid,” USA Basketball executive Grant Hill said in April — when he was officially invited to play for USA Basketball after he was injured in 2016 and opted not to play in Japan in 2021. There was no question Curry would join them when James and Durant re-committed to playing for their countries.
“And I had two extra months to practice,” Curry said, referring to the Warriors’ failure to make the playoffs last season.
The Americans had the upper hand for most of Saturday’s game. But a sloppy end to the third quarter, more misses in the fourth, and a ravenous home crowd keeping the energy high gave France an opening. And they took advantage. They cut a 13-point deficit early in the third to six by the end of the quarter. Then five, with 3:32 to go. Then three, on Victor Wembanyama’s offensive rebound dunk with 3:04 to go. Bercy was furious. The impossible dream of avenging their 2021 loss to the U.S. in Tokyo was within their grasp.
“Steph took over at the end of the game,” Kerr said. “He suggested in the timeout, ‘Let me do a clear side pick and roll with LeBron and we’ll clear the floor.’ I said OK, because I’ve seen this before and it usually works out well.”
Act I
US 82, France 79, 3:04 remaining
Curry fakes out a pass from Frenchman Guerschon Yabusele, then leaps 26 feet to the right of the key and, with Yabusele’s hands at his sides, slams a 3 to put the U.S. team back up by six. He gives the French fans the “palms down, calm down” treatment on the way back onto the court.
CURRY TIME. 🥶
A great three-pointer that turned the momentum around late in the game. #Olympic Games in Paris | 📺 NBC and Peacock photo.twitter.com/kDSOCr9bao
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
“Steph has earned this, the last couple weeks,” Kerr said. “The last couple weeks, every day, the work ethic. I tell people all the time, when Kevin was with our team, my favorite part of training with the Warriors was after training, watching those two guys work. It’s no accident that they’re able to do what they’re able to do in the final stages of games. The work, just watching those two guys, day after day after day, is really impressive. I’ve talked about LeBron, too, throughout this experience. When you see these guys behind the scenes, and how hard they work, how much they love the process of the work itself, it just makes sense that they’re as good as they are.”
Second act
US 87, France 81, 2:10 remaining
This time, Curry feints Nicolas Batum and then steps aside from 27 feet. “Bang,” as Mike Breen would say. As he runs back onto the court, Curry points to his chest and says something to the American bench. It sounds like he said, “They can’t guard me!” Maybe he said, “They can’t (bleep) guard me!” (Although Curry doesn’t actually swear at all.) Either way, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s right and that the French can’t (bleep) guard him.
Break
In which several Olympic teammates discuss the best shooter in NBA history…
LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers: “I’ve seen it before. Different uniform, though.”
Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns: “Out of body experience.”
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves: “I got to see greatness. … See Steph? Hey, I just told him, ‘Boy, you’re crazy, bro.’ Shorty went crazy. I ain’t got nothing to say about it. He is who he is, you know?”
Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat: “I was like, ‘What the f—?’ But then I remembered who shot it. And we’ve all seen him do such incredible things.”
Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers: “Like I said, it’s fun to be on (his) side. Big shots after big shots. And the level of difficulty of those shots, and the moment, it was awesome.”
Act III
US 90, France 84, 1:43 remaining
This time it’s Nando de Colo in the slow cooker. Curry, shot fake, pulls up… you know how this goes by now, right?
Boiled Colo.
The U.S. is up by nine again, with 1:18 to go. And Curry starts yelling — a archetypal yell, that “Og,” living in the Atapuerca Mountains in Spain, would have screamed when the stones he had been rubbing together for a week finally caught fire, and there was fire, and Og could finally cook the mastodon he had killed a week earlier. Or it could have been the cry of a 36-year-old man who had desperately wanted to be an Olympian for so long, and had been unable to do so, but finally did so in the most astonishing way possible in what will likely be the last two games of his Olympic career.
Act IV
US 93, France 87, 0:55 remaining
France, a smart, experienced team coached by a legend in Vincent Collet, now double-teams Curry, sending both Batum and Evan Fournier on him after the pick and roll. They “blitz” him, in NBA lingo, trying to get him to pass the ball to someone else. On top of that, the shot clock, now the size of a small hovercraft on Curry’s back, was ticking toward zero. But Curry gets behind his back, dribbles to the right of the key, and lets it fly, both The outstretched arms of Batum and Fournier, somewhere near Nice.
Splash.
“THE GOLDEN DAGGER!”
Steph Curry, that is absolutely ridiculous. 🤯#Olympic Games in Paris | 📺 NBC and Peacock photo.twitter.com/8hIN8tgmfK
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
“Every shot you take, you think it’s going to go in,” Curry said. “That was at the end of a solid series of shots,” Curry said. “At the end of the day, all I could see was the rim. I didn’t see who was in front of me. I knew it was kind of a late-clock situation. That impressed me. I impressed myself, that’s for sure. Definitely.”
And he gave a whole nation the night-nightas he ran back onto the floor. Well done, France, well done.
“Honestly, I told him, ‘You’re not going to do that,'” Edwards said. “Because he threw it high. But he was cold. He was cold.”
As an aside, a French team with Nolan Traoré, who is almost certain to be a top-five pick in the 2025 NBA draft after playing for French team Saint-Quentin next season, and playing point guard for France in Los Angeles in 2028, with Wemby and Rudy Gobert and Bilal Coulibaly and Yabusele, and maybe Alexandre Sarr and Zaccharie Risacher and Tidjane Salaun by then… well, let’s just say that would be one hell of a U.S. vs. The Blues. And if Embiid were to pull off an ultimate Heel Turn, à la Hogan at Bash at the Beach in ’96and decided to play for France? Holy Blue!
Will Curry be in Los Angeles at 40? I mean, Durant didn’t rule it out when he was asked, and he’s played for USA Basketball for 14 years. Who knows what Chef Curry will be cooking up next?
“It’s everything I imagined it would be and more,” Curry said of his first Olympic experience. “We all signed up for this mission, to continue the dominance of USA Basketball. I understood, of course, that it was going to be a very tough task, with some great teams that we were going to face. There’s a sense of relief at the end, but it’s more of a sense of accomplishment, knowing what we were able to do. I’ve seen the medal ceremonies at other events. I’ve seen (Durant) get all three of his. I watched it and imagined what it would feel like. It wasn’t really like checking something off my resume, it was more because I hadn’t experienced it and I didn’t know what it would be like. … The whole thing was eye-opening, from start to finish.”
(Top photo of Stephen Curry: Christina Pahnke – sampics / Getty Images)
