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Stephen Curry won his first-ever Olympic gold medal as the United States men’s basketball team defeated France at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Curry lifted Team USA to a 98-87 win against France during the men’s basketball final in Bercy Arena on Saturday, August 10, scoring four three-pointers with minutes left in the game. The four-time NBA champion, 36, finished with 24 points and five assists.
While Curry struggled with his shot at the start of the final, he told The Guardian on Saturday that eventually “the rhythm, the avalanche came.” The 2024 Paris Games mark Curry’s first, and likely only, Olympics.
“At that point, your mind goes blank. You don’t really care about the setting or the scenario or anything, it’s just a shot,” Curry told The New York Times of his threes after the game. “Thankfully, that one went in, it settled us down, and after that it’s just rhythm and flow and confidence and that was it.”
This win marks the fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal for the US men’s basketball team. For Lebron James, who finished with 14 points, six rebounds and 10 assists, it was his fourth Olympic medal. Meanwhile, Kevin Durant became the first male athlete of any team sport to win four gold medals. Both Durant and Devin Booker scored 15 points.
“It’s kind of hard to put into words — two times,” Booker, a two-time gold medalist, told The New York Times following the game. “This experience was totally different from the first one. Not taking anything away from that, but the atmosphere, obviously Steph and LeBron joining us, this experience is going up there with any other experience in my lifetime.”
Team USA’s gold medal win comes after a near-upset semifinal game against Serbia. The Americans secured a 95-91 win by the skin of their teeth on Thursday, August 8.
Serbia led for most of the game — at one point by as much as 13 points — but Team USA was able to pull ahead in the fourth quarter. Lebron James notched a triple-double (16 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists), while Curry scored 36 points with nine threes.
“Gotta get it the hard way. We were preaching that the whole fourth quarter,” James said in an interview shortly after the game against Serbia. “We knew it was going to be difficult. We knew Serbia was going to give us everything they had. Kudos to Serbia.”
