Serbia is +2000 to win Gold at DK, while the USA is -700 to win Gold. The USA won all four of its Olympic games by a margin of at least 17 points.
Among the Americans' lopsided wins were a 110-84 thumping of Serbia in their opening group play match on July 28. Despite how strong they seemed in the second half of the game, the United States was only leading 50–47 with 1:14 remaining in the second quarter.
After losing badly to the United States to start group play, Serbia has won three straight, but Jokic and company haven't had it easy.
They trailed by as much as 24 points at one point in the first half of their quarterfinal match against Australia on Tuesday, and they had to win via overtime.
And on August 3, they led by just five points going into the fourth quarter against South Sudan following their resounding victory over Group C rival Puerto Rico on July 31.
Every player on this roster save Tyrese Haliburton has gotten substantial playing time in at least one of the United States' opening four games, thanks to Kerr's extensive bench use.
Although seven players have started a game or more, Kerr started the same five players—LeBron James, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday, and Stephen Curry—against Serbia on July 28 and Brazil in the quarterfinals on August 6.
While Embiid and Holiday have started three and two games, respectively, James, Booker, and Curry have started all of the games. While Jayson Tatum played against South Sudan and Puerto Rico following an unexpected DPN in his team's opening game against Serbia, Anthony Davis began in place of Joel Embiid in the South Sudan match.
A calf ailment kept Durant out of his team's exhibition games leading up to the Olympics, raising questions about his availability. But the first half of the opening game against Serbia was all he needed to demonstrate that he was prepared to help guide his country to another Olympic Gold Medal.
With just a few minutes played, Durant's scorching shooting (8-for-9 from the field, including 5-of-5 from three) demonstrated to the opposition that he has the ability to significantly increase the potency of a squad that is already difficult to stop.
Though it's difficult to picture anything other than another easy U.S. victory given Durant's threat of another hot shooting night after his impressive scoring and mediocre shooting statistics against South Sudan, Puerto Rico, and Brazil.
Together with Jokic, Serbia was a fascinating dark horse heading into the Olympics thanks to the presence of Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, Heat forward Nikola Jovic, and former EuroLeague MVP Vasilije Micic. This was especially true after Bogdanovic led a team without Jokic to silver at the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
However, poor shooting after halftime caused Serbia to fall behind Team USA in the opening Group C match. If Bogdanovic performs as well as he did against South Sudan (30 points, eight assists on 10-for-14 FG shooting), Serbia may be able to compete with the United States for forty minutes.
To send the Americans home, Serbia will need to generate strong shooting from beyond the field from the whole team, not just Bogdanovic, who has hit over 38% of his 3-pointers in his NBA career.
On July 28, Serbia faced the Americans and only managed to make nine out of 37 3-point tries (24%) with Jokic and Bogdanovic shooting just three out of twelve from beyond the arc. The main reason Serbia lost that game after halftime was because Team USA was able to make 18 of 32 shots from outside the field at that period.
If Serbia can better guard the Americans' best shooters in the semifinal rematch and restrict the USA to only about 40% of their shots from beyond the area
Though there is a good chance that Serbia will keep this game close, especially if Team USA fails to score points beyond the arc, the Americans just possess far more firepower than Serbia (or any other team competing in the Olympics).
These Olympics have seen the United States win big-time in a number of different categories, so it's almost unfair for a team to have players like Anthony Edwards and Durant coming off the bench.
