Team USA improves to 3-0 with rout of Serbia

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — 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.

Even by Team USA standards, this group is outrageously deep. The Americans have seven MVP Awards represented in their starting lineup — not including Kevin Durant, who remains out with a calf injury — but they might be scarier when Kerr goes to his bench.

During this tour Kerr has been using hockey-style substitutions, subbing in five players at a time. When the public announcer tells the crowd the line changes and says the names “Anthony Edwards, Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo, Tyrese Haliburton and Devin Booker” all at once as the “second” unit, it’s a little sobering.

“Bam and AD together are really something, just the switching, but they can also protect the rim and be in a drop if we go to that coverage,” Kerr said. “The strength of the team is the depth, and so if we can play in four- or five-minute bursts of just playing intense defense, hitting bodies, rebounding being physical, then it makes sense to play that way.”

That group, though it has sometimes included Jayson Tatum and Wednesday saw Derrick White get his first minutes, has crushed the competition in the exhibitions. And it shows just how hard it could be to beat the Americans in Paris.

After Curry exited on that hot streak in the second quarter, for example, Team USA finished the half on a 19-5 run with the “backups.” The starters then came back for the third quarter and ripped off an 11-0 run and that was that.

When the second unit left for the final time midway through the fourth quarter, and the U.S. ahead by 26 points, the crowd gave an ovation when the starters came back. Then Curry, who finished with 24 points, made two more 3s just for fun.

Only then did LeBron James, who had 11 points, start flexing after a few power drives. It was that kind of night.

Adebayo had 17 points, drilling three 3-pointers to help the U.S. make 16 3s in total. Edwards, who is proving to be the U.S.’s most consistent scorer, had 16 points.

“I made the first one so I kept shooting,” said Adebayo, who was serenaded by James as an honorary “splash brother” as they left the floor. Adebayo made only 15 3-pointers last season for the Miami Heat.

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.

Using Joel Embiid, who is slowly starting to get his legs underneath him, as primary defender and using a variety of defensive looks, the U.S. passed the first Jokic test better than could’ve been expected. He didn’t have many comfortable looks and was an uncharacteristic 6-of-19 shooting to finish with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

Holding opposing star big men to that sort of line is a dream for the U.S. and also included another strong defensive effort from Davis, who continues to look like the team’s best defensive player. He had six blocks Wednesday and had eight over the two games in the U.A.E. this week.

Embiid missed several layups and was just 2-of-8 shooting with eight rebounds, showing he’s still not back to himself after a postseason layoff to allow his knee to heal.

Team USA now travels to London for two more exhibitions starting Saturday against South Sudan.

“We’ve still got so much room to improve,” James said. “But we want to continue to get better and not waste opportunities, I felt like tonight we got better.”