After two weeks of basketball, it all comes down to this. The U.S., gunning for a historic fifth straight gold medal in what is likely the Olympic finales for LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and others. France, rallying back from the brink behind a 20-year-old alien and a slew of unheralded role players, trying to win its first gold medal on home soil. The narrative intrigue here is almost endless: Is Victor Wembanyama ready for this? What will Curry do for an encore? What does LeBron have in store in his last dance? And just how electric will the crowd at Bercy Arena be?
Of course, once the ball is tipped, all of that stuff fades away, and the only thing that matters which team is better over 40 minutes. What factors will play a part in answering that question? Let’s dive in.
USA-France men’s basketball gold medal game: Keys to the game
Who starts for the U.S.?
Steve Kerr has tinkered with his lineup all tournament, benching Jayson Tatum in both matchups against Serbia and sitting Joel Embiid against South Sudan. Now, when the stakes are highest, which starting five will he settle on? France presents arguably the most interesting dilemma of any U.S. opponent yet; Les Bleus started the tournament with a twin towers lineup of Wemby and Rudy Gobert, but they didn’t catch fire until shelving Gobert in favor of a small-ball look featuring the irrepressible Guerschon Yabusele at the 4 and Wembanyama as the lone big. Team USA can very easily go small itself — really, there’s no style this roster can’t play — by slotting in Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo or both into the starting five. Heck, Kerr could even go really small with Durant or Tatum at the 4.
Of course, Kerr could also be hesitant to allow France to dictate terms, and going small raises the question of what role Embiid will play after his best game of the tournament in the semifinals. So, big or small? Match up 1 through 5, or attempt to punish France for its relative lack of non-Wemby size? The answer could have a lot to do with the answer to our next question.
Who draws the Victor Wembanyama assignment?
One of the underrated subplots down the stretch against Serbia was Kerr’s decision to take Embiid off Jokic, handing the assignment mostly to James and Durant. Will he take the same approach against an even freakier center in the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama? Wemby’s shot has largely abandoned him in these Olympics, but he’s still stuffing the stat sheet in every other way, and he’s still capable of taking over a game all by himself. If Kerr does elect to start a traditional center, will he put that center (whether it’s Embiid or someone else) on Wemby, inviting France to draw them into ball-screen actions? Or will Kerr put a smaller player on him, banking on Wembanyama not being strong enough to take advantage on the block?
SEE MORE: How to watch the men’s basketball gold medal game at Paris Olympics: TV and stream schedule
Can France’s role players keep this up?
France looked to be drawing dead just a few days ago, following up a rough series of exhibitions with a near-disastrous start to group play that included a miraculous escape against Japan and a blowout loss to Germany. Everything changed, however, when head coach Vincent Collet switched up his lineup, bringing Gobert and Evan Fournier off the bench and starting Yabusele at the 4 and Isaia Cordinier at shooting guard. Yabusele and Cordinier have been nothing short of revelations since, carrying the team’s offense in gutsy wins over Canada and Germany to get to the final. All due respect to those squads, though, the U.S. presents a different sort of test entirely. Can Yabusele keep his hair-on-fire style going against say, AD or Bam? Can Cordinier keep knocking down shots from deep? If the answer is no, this France team doesn’t have many alternate sources of offense.
Can U.S. offense crack the code (and crash the glass)?
The most remarkable thing about France’s lineup change is the way that shelving Gobert has hardly affected its defense at all. Les Bleus held Canada to below 40% shooting in the quarterfinal, then hounded Dennis Schroder into his worst performance of the tournament while holding Germany to just 44 points over the final three quarters of the semifinal. Wembanyama is still a one-man force field around the basket, and sitting Gobert allowed France to switch 1 through 4 and turn off teams’ water on the perimeter. This U.S. team is light on off-the-bounce juice outside of Anthony Edwards; how will it respond to a defense that combines switchability with an elite enforcer around the basket? And can guys like Embiid, Bam and Davis punish Collet for going small by generating second chances on the offensive glass?
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