Steph Curry could admit he was feeling the heat. The USA men’s basketball team were trailing Serbia and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić by 13 points in the fourth quarter of their Olympic semi-final on Thursday night after falling behind by as many as 17 in the first half, their quest for a fifth straight gold medal dangling by a thread.
It was Curry’s first encounter with the unique pressure faced by a USA Basketball program with an all-time record of 142-5 in the Olympics, including 35-1 since their notorious flop at the Athens Olympics two decades ago. Win and it’s business as usual. Lose and risk a permanent blotch of infamy. Just ask LeBron James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and two-time Olympic gold medalist who has never entirely outrun the LeBronze branding he earned for his peripheral role as a teenage backup on the US squad that finished third after shock losses to Puerto Rico, Australia and Argentina.
