2016 Olympic men’s basketball results: Team USA beats Spain, faces Serbia in gold medal game

Serbia jumped on Australia and never looked back, beating the Boomers 87-61 in a shocking semifinal upset. The Serbians will move on to play Team USA in the Olympic final, with a shot to win the first gold medal in the history of their basketball program.

The Serbians ran off eight straight points to start the game before Australia was forced to call an early timeout, and things didn’t improve much from that point forward. The Aussies scored a mere five points in the first quarter and 14 in the first half.

After a tough battle, the U.S. got past arguably its biggest threat and will play the winner of Serbia and Australia for the gold medal on Sunday.

Unfortunately for them, they simply couldn’t get it done. Pau Gasol did what he could playing through a leg injury and pitching in 25 points. Their first-half effort was great and they kept the U.S. from running away with it in the third quarter,but they simply couldn’t sustain that level of play. In the fourth quarter they ran out of gas.

After an easy victory over Argentina in the quarterfinals, Team USA will face its toughest challenge yet in the Olympics. They will have to beat Spain in order to advance to the gold medal game and face the winner of Serbia and Australia.

Everyone expected Spain and the U.S. to meet in the final game but early struggles by the European powerhouse made that impossible. Spain lost against Serbia and Brazil early in the tournament, causing skepticism about their level in this competition. They silenced the doubters with comfortable wins against Lithuania and Argentina to close their participation in the group stage and then trounced France in the quarterfinals, showing that they are still a force to be reckoned with and likely the second-best team in the tournament.

After a fun group stage and quarterfinals, we are now down to the best four men’s basketball teams in the Olympics. While Team USA’s battle with Spain will get most of the attention in the semifinals, Serbia and Australia have showed that they are not far behind in terms of talent. Whichever gets the spot in the gold medal game will be worthy of the honor.

Australia has been a revelation in these Olympics. After barely making it past the group stage in London 2012 and being eliminated by the U.S. in the quarterfinals, the Boomers have taken a major step forward. They finished second in their group and came close to beating Team USA. Then they completely dismantled Lithuania in the first game of the knockout stage. With their core of NBA players leading the way, they have looked like the second-best team in the tournament, showing more consistency in their effort than Spain.

The matchup everyone expected to be for the gold medal is coming earlier in these Olympics. While Team USA held up its end of the bargain, winning all five games in group play to finish first, Spain took the the first two games off and now has to face the best team in the tournament in the semifinals.

Both squads are coming off easy quarterfinals victories and need to reach the gold medal round for their participation to be a success. That means Friday’s clash (2:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN) has the potential to be a great one that could be even better than previous games between these two teams.