Stephen Curry had a sizzling 18 points in his first 11 minutes, one of those hot streaks that raises goose bumps throughout arenas as those high-arcing 3-pointers splash repeatedly through the net.
Then the buzzer sounded and there was a sub coming to get him, something coach Steve Kerr probably never imagined himself doing in the middle of the second quarter.
This is the way Team USA is supposed to look. Merciless firepower and relentless talent deployment.
Now two weeks into the journey toward the Paris Olympics, the Americans aren’t perfect, but this potentially historic group is starting to show its teeth. The team improved to 3-0 in its warmup tour with an impressive 105-79 victory over medal contender Serbia on Wednesday at Etihad Arena.
“Warriors fans are hating me tonight,” Kerr joked. “They hate me every time I take Steph out.”
“I’m pretty sure I get started like I did tonight in the second quarter [in the Olympics] and I probably wouldn’t come out at that point,” Curry said.
Serbia is potentially the USA’s strongest contender for the gold medal. It has size, it has experience and it has Nikola Jokic, who might be the best player in the world. And it might get three chances to see the Americans to hone its game plan including once next weekend to open Olympic play and possibly once more for a medal.
It must be said Serbia was playing on the second night of a back-to-back and two of its best players, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Nikola Milutinov, didn’t play. But it was serious about this test. Coach Svetislav Pesic got a technical foul for arguing 39 seconds into the game and Jokic played all but 44 seconds of the first three quarters.
