USA vs. France: For the U.S., it’s win gold or explain yourself

PARIS — The morning after the United States men’s basketball team stormed back to beat Serbia in an epic, thrilling Olympic semifinal, the Americans started staring at what lays ahead on Saturday in the gold medal game.

Namely a physical, ferocious, flying-high French team … here in France.

At first Stephen Curry compared it to the 2008 NCAA basketball tournament, when his Davidson Wildcats rallied from 17 down to beat Georgetown, only to face another elimination game (the Sweet 16) against an unfamiliar opponent (Wisconsin) just days later.

“The challenge is you have to turn the page and prepare for a new team,” Curry noted.

Then he compared it to playing a close-out NBA Finals game on the road, where “we know the crowd is going to be loud and obnoxious for them, as it should be,” Curry said.

“I bet all 12 of us could find one game where we went into a hostile environment — whether LeBron [James] coming into our place [Golden State] in 2016 or us going to Boston [in 2022],” he said.

So that’s basically what is facing Team USA — the unfamiliar grind of the NCAA tournament only in a road environment like the NBA Finals. Other than that, no big deal — just legacy and expectations and, of course, a gold medal.

“Right where we want to be,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “… It’s a big moment in everybody’s career.”

These are big careers, mind you. The U.S. has four NBA MVPs on the roster — Curry and LeBron joined by Kevin Durant and Joel Embiid. Everyone else is a star. The roster has a collective 15 NBA titles, not including Kerr, who won five as a player and four as a coach.

They know — as Serbia proved — that this is a new era of Olympic basketball where there is no guarantee of American dominance, yet the expectations back home remain: gold or explain yourself. The U.S. has won 16 of the 19 Olympics it’s participated in, including four consecutive since the 2008 “Redeem Team.”

“You know the history of USAB and the lofty success that we’ve had since that ’04 year,” Curry said. “There is pressure that is a part of it.”

For France, it is different. Pressure? Yes, because the French are the hosts and they’ve ratcheted up their game during the knockout round to make anything seem possible. Yet they enter as a 16.5-point underdog.

“Some part of a dream [has] come true…,” France’s Victor Wembanyama said. “It’s a chance to write history even more. The national team, this jersey brings to us that different energy we can’t find anywhere else, and we can see it, how intense we’ve been the last two games. It’s something that we all feel.

“As patriots, we love our jersey,” Wembanyama continued. “We love our country. We’re willing to do as much as this.”

The French will be highly motivated and while the Americans have a vastly superior roster on paper … so did Germany and Canada, both of whom felt the waves and waves of French intensity in the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively.

“Forceful,” is how Kerr described France’s style, which is aided by FIBA officiating that allows a level of contact the NBA does not. “They are very physical. They are playing extremely hard. That’s what jumps out on tape.”

No one of late has an answer for Guerschon Yabusele, a 6-foot-8, 271-pound hulk who flamed out with the Boston Celtics and now plays for the Real Madrid of the Spanish League. He had 17 points and seven rebounds against Germany and 22 and five against Canada. He plays ruthlessly hard on both ends of the court.

Then there is his defensive-end partner in crime, the 6-9, 256 pound Mathias Lessort of the Greek League, who powered his way over both teams.

“They came out the aggressors and they punched us in the mouth,” Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said after their loss to France. “They played with more force. They were the aggressors at both ends of the court.”

They will be aided by a wild home-court advantage — fans that cheer, chant, sing and bang drums. There is great passion for basketball in France and this French team — powered not by NBA stars Rudy Gobert and Wembanyama, but blue-collar journeymen — has captured the country’s imagination.

“The fans made it hard for me not to cry,” Wembanyama said. “I thank them for being as they are and for enjoying it as much as they do — this chance, this thing that we’re all living.”

What they are living is a chance for everything. So, too, are the Americans, who will lean on every bit of their experience.

“To play France in Paris in a gold medal game,” Kerr said. “It doesn’t get much better.”

Except for winning it.