The U.S. Men’s Basketball Team Looked Shaky. It Won Gold Anyway.

By the next time the U.S. played France, for the gold medal on Saturday, they did a little more than roll out the ball. They brought in a dialed-in Kevin Durant and a group of his teammates who had been steeled by a series of near disasters throughout this tournament. 

And after scraping by at times in Japan, the Americans returned to a familiar place. They were golden again. 

Durant scored 29 as the U.S. beat France, 87-82, to secure its 16th men’s basketball gold and its fourth in a row. The U.S. once again overcame a wobbly beginning and once it had the lead managed to come through with timely hoops whenever the French narrowed the margin.   

“Whew,” Popovich said afterward. “I’m glad it’s over.”

This was another game that showed the razor-thin margins that the most dominant basketball country in the world has to work with. A simple off-night—or morning in this unusual case with an 11:30 a.m. local tipoff—of shaky shooting is now enough to topple the Americans. 

That’s precisely what Durant blamed for the rattling opening-game loss to France. And after missing their first eight 3-pointers of the game, leading to an early deficit, the U.S. appeared to be staring down another grind against a group of Frenchmen who wore them down in the late moments less than two weeks ago. 

It was concerning not simply because the French had already beaten the U.S. It was because Les Bleus had everything the U.S. didn’t. Rudy Gobert, the star center for the Utah Jazz, is the exact type of interior presence the Americans lacked. The French also had the experience of playing far more games together and spent longer in pre-Olympics camp. France had already trained as a unit for two weeks before the Americans got started in Las Vegas. 

For France, though, the victory at the start of the Olympics might have been a curse in disguise. That first loss to France prompted a players-only meeting, Durant said, to address the feeling of being near rock bottom. Then U.S. came into the second showdown more focused, better organized, and angry. “Beating them in the group stage only made this game more complicated,” France’s Evan Fournier said before the game.

There was one thing that proved especially complicated for France as the game wore on: guarding a certain 6-foot-9 American who can take over a game in the time it takes to say merci beaucoup. 

After trailing 18-12, Durant ignited a 33-14 run to put the U.S. ahead. He finished the first half with 21 points, a tour de force that allowed the Americans to overcome the bricks the Americans laid early on. 

That doesn’t mean the lead ever seemed comfortable. While the Americans managed to maintain a consistent edge, even stretching the lead into double digits at times, France’s doggedness kept it in the game. Midway through the fourth quarter, Frank Ntilikina hit a shot from deep to bring Les Bleus within three and throw the game back into doubt.

“We knew they were the best team in the world and we wanted to challenge them,” France coach Vincent Collet said. “We did that.”

But American center Bam Adebayo responded immediately with a two-point bucket. Then Jrue Holiday stole the ball on France’s very next possession and finished the play with a dunk. France pressed once more during the final seconds, with a string of late buckets and an interception of an inbound pass, but it was too little too late. The party was back on. 

“It’s more joy than relief, but definitely some relief because of the expectations that get placed on Team USA,” said point guard Damian Lillard. “You can almost kind of exhale.” 

It all added up to yet another gold for a national basketball team where any other medal isn’t considered worthy of being a paper weight. The bronze finish at the 2004 Olympics was labeled such a disappointment that the 2008 team was dubbed the “Redeem Team.” 

The concern was that this squad was headed down the same path as the one that came up short in Athens. Before the U.S. had lost to France in the opener, and even before the U.S. had lost a pair of pre-Olympic exhibitions, the Americans had finished an all-time worst seventh at the 2019 World Cup with an almost entirely different roster. That meant the current squad had next to no experience playing together before arriving in Tokyo. The process was further disrupted when one of the team’s best players, Bradley Beal, was ruled out shortly before the Games because of Covid-19 protocols. Three other U.S. players arrived in Japan less than 24 hours before the first game after playing in the NBA Finals.  

Then, once they landed in Japan, the Americans flirted with danger every time they stepped on the hardwood. After losing to France, they trailed in games against the Czech Republic, Spain, and Australia before finally taking over.

“The team progressed rapidly, in a very short period of time,” Popovich said.

But the one thing that made the Americans’ struggles so surprising was also what saved them. They were stacked full of individual superstars. They had Kevin Durant. Even bench players were All-Stars. And now they’re Olympic champions again. 

Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com and Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com