Carmelo Anthony has officially completed the three-peat as a member of the Team USA Men’s Olympics Basketball team and the elder statesman on the squad rode off into the sunset. The 2016 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team moved to 8-0 and beat Serbia 96-66 to win a third straight Olympic gold medal on Sunday afternoon at Carioca Arena 1 in Rio de Janeiro.
Kevin Durant led the way for Team USA scoring a game-high 30 points with four assists, three rebounds, three steals and a block. DeMarcus Cousins finally snapped out of his Olympics slump coming off the bench to score 13 points and grab 15 rebounds. Durant’s soon-to-be Golden State Warriors teammate Klay Thompson scored 12 points.
Anthony once again struggled, much like he did in Team USA’s semifinals game, tallying only seven points, seven rebounds, two assists and a steal in the game.
After the game, Anthony told NBC’s Rosalyn Gold-Onwude that the Rio tournament would be his last.
“I know this is the end, this is it for me,” Anthony said. “I committed to this in ’04. I’ve seen the worst and I’ve seen the best.”
Nemanja Nedovic led the way for Serbia scoring 14 points on 6-10 shooting coming off the bench. Serbia’s three leading men, Bogdan Bogdanovic (seven points), Nikola Jokic (six points) and Milos Teodosic (nine points) struggled to get anything consistent going for Serbia. Bogdanovic in particular struggled, shooting only 2-12 from the field.
The win was the last with Mike Krzyzewski as head coach. He took the reins in 2005 and helped to bring the United States back to the top of the international basketball world. The team only lost one game while he was on the bench, and went undefeated in Olympic play. He walks away as the first men’s basketball coach to have won three gold medals and brought back a sense of dominance for Team USA. As Coach K leaves, next up will be Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich taking the reigns as head coach for Team USA.
The USA now has a 25-game Olympic win streak and a 53-game winning streak in major competition, including Olympics, FIBA World Cup and FIBA Americas Championship games.
