Olympic basketball quarterfinal reactions

The Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza is focused on where we stand in the men's tournament with only four teams left now in the chase for the three spots on the medal stand

Five instant reactions to Tuesday's four quarterfinal games in the men's Olympic basketball tournament:

🏀 There are some creative conspiracy theories circulating to suggest that Serbia held some strategic stuff back in its Group C meeting with the United States — in which Nikola Jokić and Co. absorbed a 26-point defeat — to save its best for the medal round. You buying that one? I'm really not even though Serbia obviously could do a much better job, irrespective of the opponent, playing through Jokić. I fully expect the Americans, as long as they keep prioritizing team ball and defense, to beat the Serbs for the third time in a span of 22 days (including a recent exhibition game on July 18) in Thursday's semifinals.

🏀 Until Tuesday I thought reigning world champions Germany stood as the foremost obstacle to American gold. Now I'm wondering if it's France's home-court advantage (including some seriously unfriendly officiating) in a potential gold-medal game. After a few exceedingly favorable whistles undeniably helped save the hosts in a group play game against Japan that they really should have lost, France was sent to the line 42 times in its quarterfinal upset of Canada. That's obviously not the only reason France won and I don't want to completely diminish the lineup and tactical tweaks France coach Vincent Collet made after receiving heavy criticism for how poorly his team played in Group B. France's defense was likewise outstanding, hounding Canada into 25-for-66 shooting (37.9%) and 5-for-21 shooting (23.8%) from deep. But 42 free throws are a LOT in a 40-minute game. It's the highest total in any men's Olympic game, according to research from my fellow Substacker

Keerthika Uthayakumar

, since the United States also racked up 42 against Serbia at the Rio Games in 2016.

🏀 Yet we also said in Monday's preview of the men's quarterfinals that a seemingly unfortunate matchup with Canada — whose 10 NBA players on the roster was second in the tournament only to the United States' 12 — did provide an ideal opportunity for the French to turn everything around suddenly. And that's exactly what they did. We've still got conflicting stories to resolve from player and coach about whether Rudy Gobert actually had surgery earlier this week on a finger on his non-shooting hand, but France has abruptly restored its status as a team to be respected and will bring ample motivation into its semifinal showdown with Germany after losing the teams' first meeting just last Friday.

🏀 I was quite surprised Jamal Murray didn't sign his widely expected contract extension with Denver before leaving for the Paris Olympics. I'm even more surprised now after Murray struggled so significantly in Canada's four games. Surely some of it was role and fit, but the Nuggets have to be asking similar questions internally given that Murray is also coming off a rather rough postseason. Yet you'll also recall that, in mid-July, Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth told SiriusXM NBA Radio: "The Olympics are a big deal. I think having him focus on that and getting through that and when he gets back and that concludes, I think it'll be pretty easy. I don't think it'll be much of a negotiation." Murray is eligible for a four-year deal worth nearly $210 million from Denver, which just let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope bolt in free agency to Orlando without compensation in part to maintain long-term financial and team-building flexibility beyond the contracts held by Jokić, Michael Porter Jr. and (eventually) Murray.

🏀 Canada had offensive issues throughout the Olympics and we frankly should have seen it coming. Team Canada, not unlike Team USA, faced the same game-to-game challenge of figuring out on the fly who it could lean on offensively beyond Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and RJ Barrett. Stout defense repeatedly saved the Canadians in group play but the United States has much more talent on the roster to make such a template work. As one top international scout put it to me: "It's just not a great recipe for success in FIBA basketball."

PS — We're likewise going to have to discuss the worrisome state of Jayson Tatum's long-range shooting here soon as well. Right? Have you considered maybe that's why Tatum has struggled for minutes with Team USA so soon after helping Boston win a championship?

---

The Stein Line is a reader-supported newsletter with both Free and Paid subscriptions available … and those who opt for the Paid edition are taking an active role in the reporting by providing vital assistance to bolster my independent coverage of #thisleague. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends interested in the NBA and please consider becoming a Paid subscriber to have full access to all of my posts.

As a reminder: Tuesday editions, on this and every Newsletter Tuesday, go out free to anyone who signs up, just as my Tuesday pieces did in their New York Times incarnation.

---

Lovely London

It's official.

London ranks as the most inviting Summer Olympics backdrop in recent memory.

I already felt that way, mind you, long before finding the data compiled by Sportico's Lev Akabas that I'm sharing here.

Apologies if you've heard this story before, but this lifelong Anglophile was already quite psyched for the 2012 Summer Games in London and the prospect of living there for more than a month with A) covering the men's basketball team via the written word for ESPN.com serving as my primary responsibility and B) living in a country I absolutely adore visiting for a month on Bristol's dime.

Then it got even better after I arrived. I soon found out that my rooming assignment, which had me in a secondary "spill" apartment building away from the bulk of my colleagues, was actually an East London flat that had been refitted with pretty much all-new everything. As a bonus: Whoever had been initially assigned as my roommate — I can't even remember who it was — didn't end up covering those Olympics for reasons I also cannot recall.

The point: I wound up in a new flat that I had to myself for a month.

None of that, though, factored into Akabas' irrefutable illustration of London's greatness in July and August. Check out those temperatures from the summer of 2012 and bear in mind that this newsletter was largely assembled on the 11th 100-plus-degree day in Dallas this summer:

---

Numbers Game

🏀 494

Kevin Durant needed only six points in Tuesday's quarterfinal victory over Brazil to supplant Lisa Leslie as USA Basketball's all-time leading scorer in the Olympics — men's or women's division. Durant finished with 11 points in the Americans' rout and now has 494 career points in Olympic play as he bids to become the first men's basketball player to win four Olympic gold medals.

🏀 567

Australia's Patty Mills likely played his last Olympic game Tuesday when The Boomers failed to hold a 24-point lead and lost to Serbia in overtime. Mills has scored 567 points in five trips to the Olympics, according to research from my pal Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, placing Mills fifth all time behind Brazil's Oscar Schmidt, Australia's Andrew Gaze, Spain's Pau Gasol and Argentina's Luis Scola.

🏀 990

Another Reynolds gem: In 990 career NBA games, Mills has scored 30 or more points just five times. In 29 Olympic games, FIBA Patty — soon to turn 36 — has done it four times.

🏀 5

Mills reached the Olympic men's quarterfinals five times with Australia. The Boomers' only medal in that run, however, came in Tokyo ... clinched by Mills' 42 points in the bronze-medal game against Luka Dončić-led Slovenia in those Tokyo Olympics contested in 2021.

🏀 12

Moved to a reserve role for Tuesday's quarterfinal against Canada like longtime fellow starter Rudy Gobert, Evan Fournier nonetheless scored 12 points for France in the final 3:48 of the hosts' 82-73 upset of the red-and-white.

🏀 7

But because Fournier is not currently on an NBA roster, France's four players who are officially in the league only combined for seven points in the win ... all scored by San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama. Minnesota's Gobert and Washington's Bilal Coulibaly barely played; Nicolas Batum of the LA Clippers went scoreless in 34 minutes.

🏀 2

How worried are you, if you're a Nuggets fan, about how Jamal Murray looked in the Olympics for Canada? Murray made just two 3-pointers in 14 attempts across Canada's four games and averaged 6.0 points on 29.0% shooting for the tournament.

🏀 10

The United States played only three games during the first 10 days of the Olympics. They must now win three games in five days to win the gold.

🏀 5-through-12

The eight teams eliminated from the 12-nation men's Olympic basketball tournament have officially finished in the following order:

5. Canada
6. Australia
7. Brazil
8. Greece
9. South Sudan
10. Spain
11. Japan
12. Puerto Rico

🏀 1,000

Only three 7-footers have connected on at least 1,000 3-pointers in NBA regular-season history: Dirk Nowitzki, Channing Frye and Utah's Lauri Markkanen, who will soon sign a lucrative contract extension with the Jazz.

🏀 50

Malachi Flynn, who remains an unsigned free agent this summer, had a 50-point game in the NBA just four months ago for Detroit in an April 3 loss to Atlanta.

🏀 3

In his next game, remember, Flynn managed just three points against Memphis and shot 0-for-12 from the field.

🏀 2017

The last time that the NBA's Christmas Day schedule featured an NBA Finals rematch was seven years ago in 2017: Cleveland at Golden State. The official schedule for the 2024-25 season will be released soon after the Olympics are completed Aug. 11.