LeBron And KD Led Team USA To A Statement Win Over Jokic And Serbia In Their Olympic Opener

For all the questions and concerns about Team USA coming out of their last two pre-Olympic exhibition games, they offered an emphatic performance on Sunday in Lille as they absolutely dominated a tough Serbia squad. It wasn’t the best start for the Americans, as Nikola Jokic, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and the Serbian squad came out flying around on both ends of the floor to take an early advantage.

Team USA would get back on track quickly though, as their first sub of the game got Anthony Davis and Anthony Edwards onto the court, injecting a bit of needed pace into the game and they quickly moved back on level terms. Then, Kevin Durant, who missed all five of Team USA’s exhibition games, made his summer debut and caught fire. Durant hit all eight of his shot attempts in the first half, including five threes, as he scored 21 points in under nine minutes to give Team USA a nine-point lead going into halftime.

In the third quarter, Team USA started to really open things up behind a big push from LeBron James, as it was the veteran stars that put on a show in the opener, flexing their muscles on both ends in an absolute rout of Serbia.

Durant (23 points) and James (21 points) combined for 44 points on the evening, with LeBron adding nine assists and seven boards, controlling absolutely everything in his time on the floor. It was a remarkable performance from the two, with Durant doing almost all of his damage in that first half flurry, but that was more than enough as James took care of the second half.

The avalanche continued until the final whistle, as Team USA poured it on late to bump up their point differential on the way to a 110-84 win. The two top stars did get plenty of help, as Jrue Holiday scored 15 points, Devin Booker added 12, and Stephen Curry and Edwards each had 11 points, including one of the highlights of the game when Ant put a Serbian defender in a blender.

It was about as impressive a showing as anyone could’ve asked for from Team USA against a team like Serbia. Nikola Jokic had a solid first half with 14 points and five assists, but finished with just 20 points and eight assists, as he was kept mostly in check — in part due to his teammates struggles shooting the ball. Serbia hit just 9-of-37 attempts from three, with only Bogdan Bogdanovic (14 points), Ognjen Dobric (12 points), and Vasilije Micic (11 points) joining Jokic in double figures.

The Americans, meanwhile, rained in 18 threes (on 32 attempts), in a pretty stark contrast to their exhibition performances when they were not only not hitting a lot of threes, they weren’t attempting many. That changed in a big way as KD, Booker, Curry, and Holiday all hit 3 or more from deep against Serbia, and the full might of the Team USA roster was on display. Now they’ll shift their attention to South Sudan, who nearly beat them a week ago in London, and should have the Americans full attention for the second game of the group stage. That could spell trouble for South Sudan if Team USA is as locked in as they were after the first few minutes on Sunday.