VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France — Kevin Durant is back. And in the first half of his debut with the U.S. Olympic team this summer at Paris Games, He didn’t miss a beat.
I didn’t miss anything, actually.
Durant — the all-time leading scorer in U.S. men’s Olympic history — scored 21 points on 8-of-8 shooting in just over 8 1/2 minutes of first-half action Sunday, helping the Americans to a 58-game lead. 49 at halftime. Serbia.
He hit five 3-pointers by halftime, and a fadeaway at the buzzer as he fell to the floor gave the U.S. a nine-point lead heading into the locker room.
Durant was the fifth substitute off the U.S. bench — the tenth man, essentially — on Sunday. It was the fourth time in his last 1,320 games that he was not a starter, a period that spanned his college year at Texas, his NBA seasons including playoffs and 53 previous games with the U.S. men’s senior national team.
And he made coming off the bench look easy. Even at halftime, reactions on social media site X were full of praise:
– “Just get the ball to KD, very simple,” Sacramento Kings guard Kevin Huerter he wrote.
— “Ridiculous KD,” Rhode Island women’s basketball associate coach Ali Jaques he wrote.
– Added Rico Kleiman, Durant’s longtime business partner: “easy money!! what are we talking about??!!!”
USA Basketball announced it would be available to play about an hour before the game. Durant missed all five of the team’s pre-Olympic exhibitions with a calf strain. He originally was injured a few days before the team met in Las Vegas for training camp in early July.
Durant is trying to become the first four-time Olympic men’s basketball gold medalist. The all-time male leader in Olympic scoring was on the teams that won titles at the London Games in 2012, the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016 and the Tokyo Games, held three years ago.
Durant returned to full training last week.
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