Workforce USA males’s basketball will play for its fifth straight Olympic gold medal when it faces France on the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Individuals barely squeaked by Serbia within the semifinal spherical after trailing by as many as 17 factors and being down by 13 factors to start out the fourth quarter, and it’ll not be straightforward for it to win all of it versus Victor Wembanyama and crew of their dwelling nation.
To fight that, Workforce USA is making a change to its beginning lineup for the gold-medal sport, inserting Kevin Durant and transferring Jrue Vacation to the bench, in line with NBA insider Shams Charania.
Workforce USA is planning to start out all-time main scorer Kevin Durant vs. France in Saturday’s Gold Medal sport on the Paris Olympics, per sources. Jrue Vacation is anticipated to come back off the USA bench. pic.twitter.com/UrYgyhyTUY
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 9, 2024
Vacation has offered Workforce USA with some point-of-attack protection, however Durant is without doubt one of the most harmful scorers in basketball historical past, and thus one should surmise that head coach Steve Kerr is making this alteration to make sure his workforce will get off to an excellent begin.
Simply days in the past, Durant turned the USA’ all-time scoring chief in Olympic competitors by surpassing girls’s legend Lisa Leslie, and even at age 35, he can go off at a second’s discover.
France, the host nation for these Video games, not solely has Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 reigning NBA Rookie of the 12 months, nevertheless it additionally boasts 7-foot-1 Rudy Gobert, who was the NBA Defensive Participant of the 12 months final season.
Thus, Workforce USA not solely wants offensive punch to start out the championship sport, nevertheless it might want to management its defensive backboard and up-tempo the sport to forestall France from utilizing its dimension to its benefit.
Durant had a quiet 9 factors in opposition to Serbia taking part in 24 minutes off the bench, and the USA might have extra from him in opposition to France as a way to win all of it.
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