The USA men's basketball team clinched their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal after defeating France 87-82 here at the Saitama Super Arena on Saturday.
Kevin Durant led the scoring for Team USA with 29 points and 6 rebounds while Jayson Tatum managed 19 points with 7 rebounds. For France, Evan Fournier and Rudy Gobert top-scored with 16 points each.
The USA boys had their offense working from the word go with Durant and Middleton leading the charge. During the dying moments of the first half, France slashed the deficit to 5 points with two free throws made by Evan Fournier but then Guerschon Yabusele fouled Khris Middleton at the other end of the court, and the US small forward sank one of the two to push the lead back out to six. Kevin proceeded to foul Rudy Gobert as he missed the first but put the second to gave France 39 against the USA's 44 going into the second half.
Going into the second half, the USA continued their charge but France fought back amazingly as Ntilikina gave the European team a nice spark off the bench in the fourth quarter. France's DeColo made 1-of-2 at the line for 85-82 with 10.2 seconds to go and a timeout was called.
When play resumed, unsurprisingly, France went straight for the personal foul as Kevin Durant had two at the line and scored both. Immediately France took the timeout and shortly after a three attempt from Nicolas Batum was missed. The buzzer soon went off and US won gold by five points.
( With inputs from ANI )
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