Steve Kerr coaches Team USA to win over Serbia

The Warriors coach debuted with a 110-84 Team USA win over Serbia that left everyone but Jayson Tatum fans happy

After some close calls in the runup to the Olympics, Steve Kerr faced questions about his preparation and rotations. But as we’ve seen with the Golden State Warriors, often the best best coaching move is simply to give Kevin Durant the ball.

Durant made all eight of of his first-half shots, including five three-pointers, and finished with 23 points as Team USA cruised to a 110-84 win over Serbia. While he missed all of the teams exhibition games leading up to Paris, Durant showed no signs of rust when he came off the bench in the first quarter.

He’s already the leading American scorer in Olympic history. Now he’s the greatest sixth man in Olympic history.

LeBron James also didn’t miss in the first half, going 5-for-5 and finishing with a near triple-double. James had 21 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds, seemingly playing point guard and power forward at the same time. At age 39, James is by far the oldest American man to play basketball at this Olympics, beating Larry Bird by four years. No wonder the Warriors wanted to trade for this guy!

Speaking of Warriors, Steph Curry had 11 points and three assists, going 3-for-7 from three-point range. His gravity was very evident throughout the game, like when he cut baseline and half of Serbia’s team followed him to the three-point arc, leading to a wide-open layup for Jrue Holiday.

Curry still sank three triples, including one near the end of regulation (He was still in because point differential matters) where he drilled a shot and turned away to celebrate before it went in.

Team USA got more open looks from using Curry as a screener, an effective but brutal tactic where Kerr repeatedly sent his 185-pound guard to set screens on Serbia’s frontcourt, which consists of Nikola Jokic and various Monstars from “Space Jam.” The strategy left Curry limping after an early knee-on-knee collision but it also sprung Durant for a buzzer-beating jumper to close the first half.

But because this was a Steve Kerr-coached team, there had to be people upset with his rotations. Durant’s return came at the expense of the Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum, who got a DNP-CD along with Tyrese Haliburton. The Slim Reaper essentially took Tatum’s spot at backup forward, as Kerr said after the game, “In a 40-minute game, you can’t play more than 10 (players).”

The internet predictably freaked out, accusing Kerr of anti-Celtics bias (Derrick White and Jrue Holiday combined for 40 minutes), mismanagement, and intentionally embarrassing Tatum, through a conspiracy with Miami Heat coach and Team USA assistant Erik Spoelstra. Jaylen Brown hasn’t weighed in yet, because Tatum being a Nike athlete clashes with his contention that sneaker company bias kept him out of the Olympics.

For the record, James played the most minutes, and the tinfoil-hat crowd will say it’s because Kerr is trying to recruit him. Devin Booker was second in minutes, clearly a diss to Klay Thompson, who beefed with Booker two seasons ago. Holiday was third with 24 minutes (Pac-10 alumni bias), Curry was fourth with 21 (hometown bias), and Bam Adebayo played 20 minutes (Spoelstra favoritism/Onomatopoeia bias).

Overall, it was an emphatic victory against a Serbian team that won silver at the FIBA World Cup without Nikola Jokic last summer. Next up is South Sudan on Wednesday, and if Tatum doesn’t get at least ten minutes, Barstool Sports is going to boycott the entire nation of France.