Team USA Men’s Basketball team wins fourth Olympic Gold medal in a row at Tokyo Games

Team USA defeated France by a score of 87-82 Friday night to claim gold in Tokyo, extending the U.S. men’s gold medal streak to four straight Olympics.

Kevin Durant scored 29 points and joined Carmelo Anthony as the only three-time men’s basketball gold medalists in Olympic history. The new all-time leading scorer for Team USA now has three Olympic gold medals under his belt at 32 years old.

While the U.S. was largely favored to win the gold, doing it against this French team made the victory that much sweeter. France handed the United States its first Olympic loss since 2004 during the preliminary round not even two weeks ago, and the U.S. clearly didn’t forget it.

The U.S. hasn’t started games strong in Tokyo, and that trend continued early on against France. The French took a 10-4 lead in the game’s opening minutes, but the U.S. ended the first quarter strong with a 16-6 run.

It was largely smooth sailing for the Americans through the next two quarters as Durant and company began to pick up steam and cushion the USA lead. France did manage to make things interesting late in the contest, though, after a massive pair of free throws from Nando de Colo put them within three with 10.2 seconds remaining.

Luckily for the Americans, it was too little too late as France was forced to foul Durant in order to stop the clock. Durant then sunk both of his free throws to once again make it a multi-possession lead for Team USA, ultimately putting the game out of reach.

Jayson Tatum finished with 19 points, Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday each scored 11 for the U.S.

Evan Fournier and Rudy Gobert each scored 16 for France, which now has four silver medals — all coming after gold-medal-game losses to the U.S. Guerschon Yabusele scored 13, Nando de Colo had 12 and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot scored 11 for France.

Frank Ntilikina’s 3-pointer got France within 73-70 with 5:42 left, but the U.S. had a quick answer — a 9-2 run that restored a 10-point lead on Tatum’s 3-pointer.

“A lot of sacrifice to get this done,” Draymond Green told NBC’s Raj Mathai. “Guys flying in right after the (NBA) Finals, getting here at midnight, 1 a.m., right before our first game … We lost a game! That’s a big deal, so we had to fix that. And we did. People been saying the world has caught up to us, but hey … they tested us. But this is our game. This means a lot to us.”

The U.S. women’s team will next try to earn gold of their own in their final against Japan. A win for the women’s team will increase their gold medal streak to a whopping seven straight Olympics.