PARIS (France) - Just two days after their miraculous comeback from being 24 points down, Serbia face an even tougher task in the Semi-Finals. The United States are on a roll, they have taken their unbeaten record to the final four and need just two more wins to pick up their fifth consecutive gold medal.
The two teams have already played each other twice this summer. Team USA had no troubles in both games, winning the exhibition matchup in Abu Dhabi, then opening up their account at the 2024 Olympics with a comfy Group C win, as well.
Serbia and the United States take the court in Bercy at 21:00 CET on Thursday.
Key matchup
Nikola Jokic vs Everybody
Nikola Jokic is arguably the best player in the world right now, with three NBA MVP awards over the past four seasons, one NBA championship and another NBA Finals MVP trophy in his cabinet.
He was the game winner in overtime against Australia, who tried double teaming him from the strong side, one pass away, tried blitzing him, giving him different kind of pressure with different kind of defenders.
Now that same approach is going to go up a notch because the United States have three giants in Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo, ready to battle with Jokic for 40 minutes.
Jokic's rest minutes will be the keys to the game, because Serbia were on par while he played (81-81 in 30:45 of action) at the Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille, but lost the remaining nine minutes 29-3.
If Serbia's backup centers can stop the bleeding while their biggest star rests, their chances of winning the game would be that much bigger.
X-factors
Shooters
So much of today's basketball revolves around good shooting, and with guys like Steph Curry and Bogdan Bogdanovic on these two teams, you know we could get a special 30-point day by people not named LeBron James or Nikola Jokic, too.
Kevin Durant was perfect in their first matchup, counting to 21 points in less than nine minutes in the first half, while Anthony Edwards had a big 26-point outing against Puerto Rico.
Bogdanovic scored 30 points against South Sudan in this tournament, and had a lot of outside shooting help from Vasilije Micic and Ognjen Dobric against Australia in the Quarter-Finals.
While Serbia's 32.4 percent three-point shooting as a team isn't all that bad, USA knock down 44.0 percent of their outside shots. Hot shooting day by either team can change the theme of this game easily.
Stats don't lie
The first time they played at the 2024 Olympics, coach Svetislav Pesic said Serbia weren't even preparing to have a good defensive day. Instead, they wanted to see how their offense functions against the bodies on the other side of the floor.
His evaluation? Serbia's offense was fine when they were precise with movements, cuts and took care of the ball. When they went away from it, the United States blew right past them and put the game beyond their reach.
This is why the turnovers could be crucial on Thursday. Serbia average 16.0 of them per game, while the United States get 21.8 points from turnovers.
The area where the Serbs are better than their Semi-Final rivals? Offensive rebounding, as Serbia grab 11.5 offensive boards per game, resulting in 15.3 second chance points per outing.
Past matchups
These two teams have a lot of history of playing high profile games in major events. In 2014 and 2016, they played back-to-back Finals of the FIBA Basketball World Cup and the Olympics, with Team USA winning both games by a combined 67 points difference.
In 2016, they also played in Group Stage, with Serbia nearly pulling off an upset, powered by Nikola Jokic's 25 points and 6 rebounds, but the USA won the game 94-91.
However, at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in China, Serbia did manage to win one. In the Classification Games 5-8, Bogdan Bogdanovic had 28 points to hand the USA a 94-89 defeat.
Traveling back in time when their nation was a part of FR Yugoslavia, Serbian players have played the Final of the 1996 Olympics against the United States, losing the game 96-59 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Even further back, when Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro were all united as Yugoslavia, they matched up with the Americans six times at the Olympics, including the Finals in 1968 and 1976.
USA won all six of those games.
FIBA