USA ready for hostile French basketball crowd after narrow escape against Serbia

The reigning men's champions will face the hosts, led by the brilliant Victor Wembanyama, and thousands of feisty home fans in the Olympic gold medal game

Steph Curry could admit he was feeling the heat. The USA men's basketball team were trailing Serbia and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Joki by 13 points in the fourth quarter of their Olympic semi-final on Thursday night after falling behind by as many as 17 in the first half, their quest for a fifth straight gold medal dangling by a thread.

It was Curry's first encounter with the unique pressure faced by a USA Basketball program with an all-time record of 142-5 in the Olympics, including 35-1 since their notorious flop at the Athens Olympics two decades ago. Win and it's business as usual. Lose and risk a permanent blotch of infamy. Just ask LeBron James, the NBA's all-time leading scorer and two-time Olympic gold medalist who has never entirely outrun the LeBronze branding he earned for his peripheral role as a teenage backup on the US squad that finished third after shock losses to Puerto Rico, Australia and Argentina.