By Only Players Staff
Updated 8/8/24 3:40am ET
It’s a rematch for Team USA and Serbia in the men’s basketball semifinals of the Olympics. The Americans won the group play opener by 26 points but the two countries played to a draw in the 31 minutes with Nikola Jokic on the court.
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Automated transcript is below. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Men’s basketball at the Olympics has reached the medal rounds, which means the semi -finals. Team USA facing Serbia, the same opponent, they began the Olympics, beginning of group play against one and covered. So this matchup, Americans favored by 16 and a half, you’re over under 187 and a half. So pretty high scoring game expected. Now, Team USA won by 26 in that first meeting in group play, but there’s a little bit of an asterisk.
When Nikola Jokic was on the court, the two teams played dead even, zero point differential. When Jokic was off the court for just nine minutes, the Americans outscored the Serbs by 26 points. So you have to think, Serbia is gonna play Jokic and just lean on him as much as possible, even though Serbia just played an overtime game in the quarterfinals, nearly were upset, but here they are, they get another crack at the Americans.
Now obviously, this market is not as tight as like the regular season of the NBA or NFL. But I can’t help but lean on past occurrences. Let’s go back to the last Olympics, where the Americans actually lost to France in group play, and then they faced France in the gold medal game and Team USA won. I think other countries saw that and were like, why would we throw our curveballs, do everything we can to win in group play when we really have one shot at them?
That’s what Spain did in 2008. We all remember the Gasol brothers, Ricky Rubio, and the Americans coming down to the wire with Kobe and everything. It was a tight game and Team USA prevailed in one goal. That was the redeem team. But what people forget is in group play when they faced each other, the Americans won by 37. I think Spain played possum and was saying, we don’t need to win this game. Let’s not try to throw the kitchen sink.
I think we see a great performance out of Serbia. Now, are the Americans maybe just too talented and pull away? Perhaps. So for me, it’s a lean, it’s Serbia or pass. That’s the only way I can play this game. I do like the prop market. I like Nikola Jokic over seven and a half assists. I think we’re going to see a vintage Jokic performance. He can’t single -handedly outscore the Americans, but the offense is going to have to run through him. He’s averaging around eight anyways. So I think we see a good performance from, great performance from Jokic. And we’ll get the, I think we cash on the over assist.
