With 16 seconds left on the clock at the Bercy Arena, Steph Curry took the ball in centre court, 30 feet from the rim, and already falling backwards, the sky blocked out by two French defenders in front of him, unable to see the basket, milliseconds ticking down before he lost control, before gravity took hold, the day closing in.
Somehow from that blind position he still released the ball in a hard flat perfect arc, the roar of the crowd telling Curry he had indeed hit the invisible target beyond the flailing hands. It was a remarkable piece of morse-code accuracy at the best of times.
But by that point Curry was in the middle of his own cold clean moment of clarity, a man playing with a kind of light around him, in the process propelling the USA men’s basketball team on to the gold medal that, for all France’s sweat and heart, always seemed to be theirs for the taking.
That three-pointer was Curry’s third in just over two minutes of the final quarter. The second was equally artful in its own way, made by the hilariously casual feint that nobody, even now, seems to be able to read, Curry dropping a shoulder to send the nearest Frenchmen wandering off up the stairs, out of the stadium and down to the Gare de Lyon, then making the net whiffle with startling economy of movement.
Victory by 98-87 in this Paris 2024 final made it five Olympic golds in a row for the US, a feat someone somewhere is probably going to call a five-peat, but which was hard-earned here in a thrillingly physical contest in front of a boisterous home crowd. In the end the USA just had too many weapons, too many sharp edges to call on. As Cuba’s coach famously said in 1992, after trying and failing to stifle the first Dream Team: “You can try, but you can’t cover the sun with your finger.”
The Bercy Arena is a huge, square windowless hangar, steeply tiered, teeth-chatteringly cold at the top of the bleachers, and below that crammed with flags, blue French colours and that very distinct crackle of event glamour that always lingers around these occasions. France’s stars had come out. Thierry Henry was in the house. Also, Emmanuel Macron.
But somehow US basketball always seems to carry a sense of being in its own space, a portable sporting embassy. It is in the nature of these occasions. Basketball at the Olympics is a kind of travelling fanfare. It’s Uncle Sam in oversized sneakers. The Olympic Games is such an American event now, fuelled by US TV dollars, peopled by the bumbag ultras of US sports tourism. Basketball is its heart, its centre, its weapon of ultimate deterrence. For many Americans this is the Olympics.
And so at 21.22pm it was time finally for Theeee Yooonighted Stayyytss of Amururrricia. The theatre of those opening ceremonials was gripping in itself, the players coming out one by one like gameshow competitors, the entire arena gripped with the sheer uncontainable energy of this thing. There was a huge rolling boo for Joel Embiid, born in Yaoundé, at one point eager to play for France, but now an NBA MVP, all-American Olympian and major pantomime villain in Bercy.
The first act of the might was LeBron James reeling off a high-speed two-point rush. France’s star, Victor Wembanyama, conjured up his first floating dunk of the game, showing off that ability to drift and hang and breeze into the correct pocket of air, floating like a zeppelin.
Wembanyama conjured a delightful whiplash back-flip pass, then dunked another, and France were ahead 11-10 three minutes in. It was breathless stuff.
L’Équipe had compared this final to a face-off between a low-budget French auteur piece of cinema and a Hollywood blockbuster: Breathless against the Avengers, Jacques Tati attempting to out-motorbike chase Tom Cruise. But France played with great skill and heart here.
“We want to shut mouths. It will be war,” Guerschon Yabusele had warned in the pre-match, which is certainly a bit more fun than just being delighted to face this challenge against an opponent you respect. And he had a fantastic, relentlessly aggressive game.
James was playing like a basketball Beckenbauer, craggier now, even more handsome and stately, always seeing the pass in transition, a perfect control valve. Every moment he was there, the USA always seemed to be winning.
At moments such as these there is a sudden issue of scale to these contests. The USA squad’s combined annual wage is £487m. This is the most professionalised sport ever devised. These players receive $50m a year as a base salary. This is a theatre that revels in its excesses, the lifestyle, the glitz, the chinchilla-fur lined helicopter gunship, the vellum-lined personal spa, the solid gold bidet set, a hat made entirely from parmesan cheese.
France’s players are solid, highgrade Euroleaguers, with a drip of NBA class, and lurking at the centre Victor “the Alien” Wembanyama, a prodigious 20-year-old of ethereal (can a 7ft 4in human be ethereal? Oh yes) talent and vision.
But France kept pressing, kept themselves within sight. At the end of the second quarter the USA were 49-41 up, but still a little harried and scrappy at times. The half-time show was also the moment for a strange and frightening dance event staged by people on chairs in black clothes who seemed to be expressing some terrifying vision of existential angst. Cheers then. Where’s Snoop?
Why is basketball at the Olympics anyway? Some have asked this question. Why is a billionaire professional sports person competing for a gold medal? The answer is obvious enough. This event is vast. You’re going to sell a lot of phones, computers, financial services and hospitality packages. Aside from that, these are some of the most gifted and focused athletes on the planet. If not this, then what? The basic beauty, the grace of those white shirts ghosting, floating, twisting. Plus basketball is global, easy access, low cost, male and female in code. And it was thrillingly close here too, right up until the moment Curry produced that moment of killer calm.
