PARIS — All the favored teams in the first three men’s basketball quarterfinals at the Paris Olympics had problems. Canada lost to France. Serbia erased a 24-point deficit to beat Australia. Germany had to shake off a double-digit deficit before beating Greece.
So going into the fourth and final game of the night, the U.S. knew what it had to do.
“We wanted to come out and make sure we were the aggressor,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr.
They made it look easy too. Devin Booker led a balanced front with 18 points and the Americans had little trouble with Brazil, winning 122-87 on Tuesday.
The U.S. (4-0) moves on to face Serbia (3-1) in Thursday’s semifinals, while Germany (4-0) takes on France (3-1) in the other semifinal. Winners of those games will play Saturday night for the gold medal; Thursday’s losers will play Saturday morning for the bronze.
“Everybody expects us to win,” U.S. forward Jayson Tatum said. “But you don’t take things for granted, right? Canada lost earlier. It’s a different game. It’s not like playoffs, where it’s a series. We’ve got one game and a lot of (stuff) can happen in one game, especially over here.”
If there was one issue, it was this: LeBron James left in the third quarter after catching an elbow around his left eye, struck by Brazil’s Georginho de Paula while going for a rebound. James went down, eventually pressed a towel over the eye and left for the locker room later in the third.
Kerr said James needed four stitches.
“I’m all right,” James said. “Got hit with an inadvertent elbow around the eye.”
Anthony Edwards scored 17 points, while Joel Embiid — booed again in France, of course — had 14 points and seven rebounds in 12 first-half minutes for the Americans. Anthony Davis finished with 13 points and eight rebounds for the U.S. James had 12 points and nine assists.
Kevin Durant scored 11 points and passed Lisa Leslie as the U.S. Olympic career scoring leader, men’s or women’s. Leslie had 488 points in four Olympic appearances, all of which ended with gold medals. Durant is trying to go 4-for-4 on the gold front as well; he’s two wins from getting that done.
“He’s incredible. He was born to play ball and he’s simply incredible,” James said. “I’m happy for him. Congratulations to him. I’m super proud of him. And he’s got more to go.”
There was a moment when Brazil might have thought it had a chance. It trailed the U.S. by only eight midway through the second quarter. A big deficit had turned into something rather manageable.
The moment was short-lived.
A 21-2 run over the final 3:56 of the half turned things into their predictable blowout state. It eliminated whatever doubt there might have been — let’s be honest, there wasn’t much, if any — and the U.S. turned that eight-point lead into a 63-36 runaway going into the final 20 minutes.
Bruno Caboclo was the star for Brazil, leading all scorers with 30 points.
Playing in Paris for the first time during these Games, the crowd was smaller — the arena used for the three games in the group stage is nearly twice as big as the one being used for the knockout stage — but given the stakes, the turnout certainly seemed more star-studded.
Retired U.S. Olympic basketball star Carmelo Anthony and his son, Kiyan, were there, seated next to Pau Gasol in VIP spots near the court. U.S. women’s star A’ja Wilson had a spot next to Snoop Dogg, who has become the unofficial ambassador of all things Team USA at these Olympics.
They came for a show. They got one. James led the end-of-half surge, and that was basically the game.
“Bron just out there throwing dimes,” UConn women’s star Paige Bueckers offered on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and she wasn’t wrong. He was 4-for-4 in the half from the field, 2-for-2 from the line, a tidy 10 points and eight assists.
James walked back to the bench with about three minutes left in the game after being tended to following that shot to the face.
And the crowd in Paris roared.
More Top Picks Iphone Vs Samsung For Photography
Maybe it was because James was fine. It might have been because at the same moment, French Olympic swimming star Leon Marchand — a winner of four gold medals at these Games — was being shown on the scoreboard as well.
Either way, they had plenty to cheer.
“These are the medal games now,” Booker said. “Have to take it to another level.”
France 82, Canada 73
France had an ugly couple of days after its group-stage finale loss to Germany.
It turned into possibly its prettiest performance of the Olympic tournament so far.
Guerschon Yabusele scored 22 points after being inserted into the starting lineup, Victor Wembanyama had 12 rebounds and France beat Canada 82-73 to advance to its second straight Olympic men’s basketball semifinal. Wembanyama finished with seven points, five assists, three steals and a block.
Isaia Cordinier added 20 points for France, which is aiming to add to its medal haul after winning silver in the Tokyo Games in 2021. It will meet Germany, a winner over Greece, on Thursday.
“We had a lot of time to think, to fix things, and the whole team was just so dedicated to fixing everything,” Wembanyama said. “Now we’ve got a good base to build on for the final phase of the tournament.”
French coach Vincent Collet pulled four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert and Evan Fournier from the starting lineup. Gobert played just four minutes after suffering an unspecified injury in practice. Fournier didn’t see the court until late in the first quarter. His benching came after Collet took issue with some critical comments by Fournier after the Germany loss.
Fournier finished with 15 points, saying afterward there is no ongoing issue with his coach.
“When you have guys that have the same goal, that are being competitive and trying to win, it’s pressure,” Fournier said. “It’s part of the game. … You just have to handle stuff like that. And that’s what we did there.”
Wembanyama, Yabusele, Cordinier, Nicolas Batum and Frank Ntilikina started Tuesday. The group gave the team an energy boost, with France taking a 23-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Canada cut a 19-point second-half lead for France to 71-66 with less than three minutes to go. But the rally stalled there.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led Canada with 27 points, and RJ Barrett added 16. Canada has not reached the Olympic final four since 1984.
“The start obviously put us in a hole,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I think we won the rest of the game after the start. But when you start like that, it’s hard to play against any team.”
With Canada limiting Wembanyama’s touches, Yabusele and Cordinier carried the offensive load for France.
France took an 11-point lead into the fourth, when Wembanyama, Gobert and Batum combined for just three points.
Canada cut the deficit to 71-66 on a steal and dunk by Lu Dort.
It was 73-66 with a little more than a minute to play when Fournier connected on a desperation heave from just inside the half-court line with the shot clock winding down.
Serbia 95, Australia 90 (OT)
Nikola Jokic had 21 points and 14 rebounds, and Serbia surged back to beat Australia in overtime to reach the semifinals.
Bogdan Bogdanovic added 17 for points for Serbia, which rallied from a 24-point first-half deficit to set up a meeting with the U.S.
Serbia is aiming for its first Olympic medal since the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, where it took silver. That was the first Olympics for a then-21-year-old Jokic.
Bogdanovic acknowledged doubting whether they’d complete the comeback.
“Honestly, we didn’t keep cool,” he said. “But we knew we were down and we needed to find some momentum and rhythm. … They had the whole momentum of the game. As I said, this is the biggest pressure of the tournament. Quarterfinals. You know if you lose, you’re out.”
Patty Mills had 26 points — but just six after halftime — for Australia, which won the Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo three years ago. Josh Giddey added 25 points.
“I thought we threw everything at them,” Mills said. “We’re playing against world-class individuals. World-class teams. World-class coaches. And this is why you play international basketball. It’s a different sport than any other league around the world. It brings the best out of everyone.”
Jokic put Serbia on top 91-90 with just over a minute left in overtime. Australia’s Jack McVeigh then misfired on its next possession. Serbia got the ball back to Jokic, who converted again.
Australia attempted to get the ball into Mills on the inbounds, but it was knocked away and stolen by Serbia.
Serbia stormed back in the third quarter and retook the lead late, 61-60, on a jumper by Bogdanovic. The basket capped a 40-14 scoring run.
Serbia led 67-65 entering the fourth and was up 81-78 when Giddey hit a short jumper to cut the margin to a point with just over a minute to play in regulation.
Australia rebounded a Bogdanovic miss, but Mills misfired on the other end. Australia forced a Vasilije Micic error, but he was fouled on the rebound with 9.8 seconds left. He then connected on 1 of 2 free throws.
Australia got the ball into Mills, who lost his dribble, gathered and hit a fallaway jumper to send the game to an extra frame.
Germany 76, Greece 63
Franz Wagner scored 18 points and Germany overcame a sluggish start to beat Greece and advance to the semifinals for the first time.
Dennis Schroder added 13 points and eight assists for the reigning World Cup champions, who will face France on Thursday. Germany’s previous best finish at the Olympics was seventh place in 1992.
More Top Picks Best Reading Glasses Under 50
Germany is unbeaten at the Paris Games after going 3-0 in the group stage.
“I think everybody on the team knows that we’ve got a special group, and I want to get the most out of this,” Wagner said.
Giannis Antetokounmpo had 22 points for Greece, which was denied its first semifinal berth in Antetokounmpo’s first Olympic appearance.
Greece had 15 turnovers, leading to 20 points for Germany.
Wagner entered the quarterfinals averaging a team-high 22 points but struggled to get going.
Greece led by 12 at one point —- the first time Germany had trailed by 10 or more points in the tournament. But Germany settled in and used a big third quarter to take a seven-point lead into the fourth. Germany started the final period on a 13-5 run to increase its lead to 72-57 with 1:50 remaining.