How Steph Curry inspired USA men’s basketball side to fifth straight gold medal (2024)

PARIS — America’s recurring dream continues.

The Americans beat France, at Paris’ Bercy Arena, 98-87 for a fifth consecutive gold medal in men’s basketball, in a rematch of the Tokyo Olympic finals from three years ago.

Steph Curry, in his first and maybe only Olympics and a hero from the Americans’ narrow win over Serbia to even reach the gold-medal game, led the U.S. with 24 points, drained four crucial 3-pointers inside of 3 minutes to go, including the likely game-clincher with 33 seconds left for a nine-point advantage.

Unfortunately, we all have a long time to wait until the next major international basketball tournament.

The next FIBA Basketball World Cup, which will be hosted in Qatar, will be in August and September...of 2027.

After that, however, it won't be a long wait until the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles!

After the medal ceremony, Stephen Curry spoke about his barrage of three-pointers at the end of the game: “I was just trying to settle us down. All we wanted to do was get a good shot. It had been a while since we had good possession. The momentum was on our side. At that point, your mind goes blank. You don't really care about setting or the scenario or anything. It's just a shot.”

On winning his first gold medal: “There's a lot of relief. It wasn’t easy but, damn, I’m excited, man. This is everything that I wanted it to be and more, so I'm excited.”

United States head coach Steve Kerr spoke about how his team won: "Stephen Curry ended up being the difference. The flurry at the end of the game was just incredible. I've seen it a few times, but it never gets old. But it's the whole group, it's all 12 guys, these last six weeks of putting in so much work.

"I want to give credit to France, they were amazing. It felt like we were going to break that game open many times, and they just kept hanging in there. Congrats to them for the silver medal."

On learning something in the semifinal against Serbia: "We learned how hard these games are in the medal round, against the best teams, like France, like Serbia, so it's pretty amazing, three games here in Paris, just watching Steph Curry here never gets old."

On the level of competition in the tournament: "The game is global, there is great talent all over the world. Victor Wembanyama was amazing tonight, he is soon to become one of the great players in the world, but we still feel like we have the most great players in America."

France head coach Vincent Collet spoke about winning the silver medal for a second straight Olympics: “It is a great feeling but I am a competitor and I wanted to win so for the moment it is disappointment. If we had made one or two shots which were open, we could have been closer with a few minutes to go.”

On how he can take the team to the next level: “I think this French team will have a good future. We have very good young players. Wemby is 20 years old and he is already fantastic and he will be even better. He played his best game tonight, a really great game.”

After receiving his gold medal, LeBron James spoke about his Olympic experience: "We have only been together for a short period of time, and we had one common goal and that goal was gold, hold each other accountable every single day to get better, and we did that every single day until the last game."

On how much this means to him: "It means everything. At this latter stage of my career, I don't know many games I'm going to play, how many more big moments, so to have my family here means everything to me."

On basketball being a global game: "It really is a global game, everybody loves the game, you see the competitive teams making a push, the world. It's a basketball world, and we just hope we can inspire everybody across the world."

On the difference tonight: "We just kept our composure. We have been in some tight games throughout the preliminary games, and we had a tight game against Serbia so we knew we were going to get everybody's biggest punch, so it was all about staying composed and willing our way to victory."

On Los Angeles 2028: "Nah, I can't see myself playing in LA. I also didn't see myself playing in Paris, but four years from now, nah man."

On how this gold compares to his others from 2008 and 2012: "It's the best one because it's right now. We put this team together very fast. We didn't like the way we played last summer, so we put this together fast. We had to come together in less than a month."

On Stephen Curry's performance: "You just simply marvel in his talent. Obviously, I've seen it before on the opposite side, you just gotta keep finding ways to keep getting him the ball."

After the medal ceremony, Victor Wembanyama was asked when he first thought an Olympic medal was possible: "I never dreamed of this moment. It is incredible. I couldn’t have asked for a better team, better coaches. Everyone contributed – the cleaning staff, security, everyone. All these people who made it possible, and it was an awesome experience."

On what he will take from his first Olympics: "We can’t take this for granted. In a tournament like this, things can switch in a moment. The games were really high intensity, and we could have lost by 20 points, but we kept fighting. I will be going for gold in four years’ time."

On his main takeaway from the tournament: "I understand what we've done is not given. We have a group that can react and question itself in order to fix all kinds of problems. That's what I will remember from this campaign. The love we received from the fans, the love we have for the game, and for each other."

On if he regrets anything from tonight's loss: "I'm doing things to never have regrets. I think we had a good performance today. Nothing was wasted. We still managed to do something."

On getting a silver medal: "I'll absorb everything, and start realising it's the Olympic Games, because we were a bit sidelined until now. It's still an Olympic medal, we never know when it'll happen again. I'll be like a kid at the closing ceremony."

On the future of French basketball: "We have to learn, grow and trust the younger generation, like we trusted the experienced guys this year. We have diamonds coming out of our country, we still have all our chances."

After the medal ceremony, Joel Embiid spoke about winning gold: "It feels good to be part of winning, winning something as a team, as a collective. I've been waiting for this for a long time."

On receiving the gold medal: "It was great. I got a few more boos to end the time here in Paris, but like I've been saying, I see it as love. I got a lot of love for the fans, France, everybody. I'm all about love."

On Stephen Curry's three-point shooting late in the fourth quarter: "Especially the last one. Big shots after big shots, the level of difficulty of those shots, and the moment, it was tremendous. Being his teammate, especially after playing against him and seeing him make all those crazy shots in the last couple of years, it's fun to be on that side."

French veteran Nic Batum is asked if he expected more out of his team than this silver-medal finish. He looked confused by the question.

"Did you see us play last week? We were in very, very bad shape."

With the 21st edition of the Olympic men's basketball tournament in the books, let's take a look at the updated all-time medal standings:

1. United States: 17 golds, 1 silver, 2 bronzes, 20 total
2. Soviet Union: 2 golds, 4 silvers, 3 bronzes, 9 total
3. Yugoslavia: 1 gold, 3 silvers, 1 bronze, 5 total
4. Argentina: 1 gold, 1 bronze, 2 total
5. France: 4 silvers, 4 total
6. Spain: 3 silvers, 1 bronze, 4 total

France player Mathias Lessort had a Martinique flag draped over his shoulders during the medal ceremony. He was born in the Caribbean island that is a region of France and was raised there until he was 15.

While the French team were standing on the podium to receive their silver medals, Lessort, who plays for Panathinaikos in Greece, bowed his head with the flag across his shoulders.

A previous version of this post misidentified the flag Mathias Lessort held during the medal ceremony. Lessort held the flag of Martinique, not the flag of Palestine.

USA coach Steve Kerr had already said he would step down from his post at the conclusion of the Olympics. He does so as a champion. The Americans didn’t lose this summer, covering six Olympic contests and five exhibition games. They beat their opponents at the Olympics by a combined 114 points, though the 17-point deficit they faced against Serbia and the three-point lead they held with just 3:04 remaining against France are true indicators of just how tough the final two games were.

Three times, including in the Olympic semifinals against Serbia when a loss would have ruined everything, the U.S. was challenged in games until the final moments. Such a thing never happened to the Dream Team, but that was decades ago.

Basketball grew around the world because of what Michael Jordan’s last Olympic team did, and it took a superstar cast with some of the greatest to ever play to outlast a star-studded tournament at the Paris Games.

Keep that in mind as you consider where to rank this iteration of Team USA among the great teams that came before it, and also begin to ponder what the next American roster will look like in four years when the Olympics come to Los Angeles.

FIBA have named LeBron James the MVP of the 2024 Olympic tournament, along with an All-Star lineup of:

• Dennis Schroder, Germany
• Stephen Curry, USA
• LeBron James, USA
• Victor Wembanyama, France
• Nikola Jokić, Serbia

Michael Jordan may have famously draped an American flag over the Reebok logo on his Team USA jacket in 1992, but there was no such corporate chicanery this year. Steph Curry, an Under Armour sponsor, and Anthony Edwards (Adidas) were the first two Americans to receive their gold medals, and they wore their Team USA jackets unencumbered with the Nike swoosh was plainly visible.

That's the kind of earned media that Nike can't buy.

The loudest cheers from the French crowd come for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron James.

When it's Joel Embiid's turn, he and his teammates egg the crowd on, who happily oblige by booing him. Embiid loves it.