The Americans took another step toward a gold medal in Olympic basketball Saturday inside Paris’ Pierre Mauroy Stadium.
Entering the night sitting atop the Group C standings at 2-0, Team USA had to beat Puerto Rico by at least five points to clinch the No. 1 seed in the Olympic men’s tournament bracket.
The Americans beat Serbia 110-84 in their opener last Sunday and handed a scrappy South Sudan team a 103-86 loss on Wednesday. They won by 21 points on Saturday.
Head coach Steve Kerr, continuing to experiment with his rotations ahead of the knock-out rounds, started Stephen Curry, Devin Booker, LeBron James, Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid against Puerto Rico. Jrue Holiday, the Americans’ defensive anchor, did not play because of an ankle injury suffered against South Sudan.
Team USA came out flat defensively and found itself in trouble early. Thanks to an 11-0 run which featured four 3-pointers in eight minutes, Puerto Rico built a 25-17 lead with 2:12 left in the first quarter. The Americans wound up surrendering 29 points in the opening quarter while scoring 25.
The first half of the second quarter was a back-and-forth affair. However, trailing 35-34 with 6:27 left in the half, Team USA finally buckled down defensively and outscored Puerto Rico 30-10 the rest of the way to take a commanding 64-45 lead into the break.
Puerto Rico never recovered. The Americans’ largest lead of the night was 27 points, courtesy of an Anthony Edwards trey with 3:07 left in the third quarter. And with another dominant performance on Saturday, Team USA — who had the largest point differential in group play — has now officially separated itself as the team to beat when the knock-out stage begins on Tuesday against Brazil. Kerr said Holiday should be available to play in that game.
Edwards was at his peak against Puerto Rico, finishing with a game-high 26 points on 11-of-15 shooting, including an emphatic windmill dunk early in the fourth quarter. James, Tatum, Embiid, Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis also finished in double figures, as Team USA shot 49.6% from the field and committed just 11 turnovers.
Jose Alvarado of the New Orleans Pelicans, the lone NBA player on Puerto Rico’s roster, scored a team-high 18 points.
“It’s a dream come true, a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Edwards said. “A lot of people don’t get it and I’m making the most of it.”
Durant, who added 11 points and four rebounds against Puerto Rico, is now Team USA’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Olympic play. He is also five points shy of Lisa Leslie’s all-time record for total Olympic points scored (488) for Team USA men’s and women’s basketball. Diana Taurasi is 74 points shy of the record.
“I’m just glad we won this game,” Durant said. “Feels good to accomplish something with this group of guys — it’s a fun group of guys. I like being in the locker room with them. It’s cool to do this type of stuff, but we’re trying to get gold.”