What we learned as vintage Steph fuels Team USA win vs. Jokić, Serbia

What we learned as vintage Steph fuels Team USA win vs. Jokić, Serbia originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

BOX SCORE

Steph Curry made up for an unusual performance Monday with a spectacular showing in Team USA’s 105-79 thrashing of Nikola Jokić and Serbia on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.

Curry strung together an 18-point first half, including a mind-boggling and-1 4-point play that had the Team USA bench – and the crowd at Etihad Arena — on their feet.

Curry’s hot start didn’t extend to any of his teammates until Anthony Davis checked into the game midway through the opening frame as Team USA trailed early in the first.

Davis, who led the charge for Team USA’s second unit, got going immediately, defending Jokić and scoring a handful of points to even the score at 28 after one.

The Los Angeles Lakers star center, coming off a dominant 17-point, 14-rebound double-double performance in Monday’s win against Australia, continued to stay hot Wednesday — but his dominance came on the defensive end of the floor, fulfilling the difficult task of guarding Jokić.

The Serbian big man, a typically efficient shooter, finished with 16 points on 6-of-19 (31.6 percent) shooting from the field and 0 of 4 from 3-point range, and was a game-worst minus-27 in plus/minus rating.

Bam Adebayo finished with a team-high plus-22 in plus/minus rating, collecting 17 points on 6-of-8 from the field and 3 of 4 from 3-point range, and seven rebounds.

LeBron James added 11 points and Anthony Edwards contributed 16.

Team USA now is 3-0 in its exhibition matches, with two games remaining before Group Play. And Team USA will come face-to-face with Jokić again when it opens Olympic play against Serbia in two weeks.

Here are the takeaways from Wednesday’s win:

Chef cooks early 

After a rare quiet performance from Curry in Team USA’s sloppy win against Australia on Monday, the Golden State Warriors superstar was back in the kitchen two days later.

Curry finished Monday’s game with three points. Within the first 24 seconds of Wednesday’s game, he already matched that number.

The sharpshooter opened all scoring Wednesday from the region where…

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Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-07-17 18:52:02

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