RIO DE JANEIRO -- Some at-the-buzzer instant analysis from press row at the Carioca Arena 1 after Team USA followed up Wednesday's scare against Australia with a 94-91 escape against Serbia that featured its own fresh rash of uncomfortable moments for the tournament's heavy favorite:
How It Happened: Team USA scored the game's first nine points, bolted to a 24-7 lead and looked from the jump like a team determined to make Serbia pay for the close call endured by the Americans in their previous Group A game with the Aussies.
The ball movement was crisper. The defensive intensity was palpable. The rout was on.
These players never imagined, given how the evening began, that they'd find themselves in a one-possession game in the final five seconds and forced to sweat out an open wing 3-pointer from Bogdan Bogdanovic for the tie that mercifully bounced long off the rim.
But Serbia has a proud, stubborn group of its own, led by crafty veteran guard Milos Teodosic. Coach Mike Krzyzewski has mentioned Teodosic seemingly almost every day since the Americans arrived in Rio ... and you saw plenty of examples why.
Despite the considerable attention he was drawing from the Yanks' D, Teodosic was at the heart of the ball-movement clinic that got the Serbs back in the game and -- in the greater concern for Krzyzewski -- kept them in it all the way to the buzzer despite the two very quick fouls star center Miroslav Raduljica picked up early in the second half.
For all the raves about this group's defensive prowess, Team USA struggled for the second straight game to cope with an offense that lets all five players touch the ball and features copious amounts of movement. Deep in the shot clock, guarding multiple actions is proving problematic far too often for a team with the Americans' gold-or-bust aspirations.
The decision by Serbia coach Sasha Djordjevic not to pull Raduljica after his third foul seemed disastrous when the former Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves big man picked up No. 4 all of three seconds later, with a whopping 8:41 to go in the third quarter.
It was two DeAndre Jordan free throws -- believe it or not -- in the final minute of the third that briefly got the lead back to double digits (71-60). But Serbia -- with Denver Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic ably filling the void created by Raduljica's absence -- simply wouldn't go away.
The game stayed in single digits for much of the final period, despite some quality contributions from DeMar DeRozan (11 points) in a rare opportunity alongside starters Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony in a small-ball unit.
Krzyzewski then let Draymond Green finish the game with that quartet as his small-ball center and that group hung on -- barely. Teodosic drew Serbia to within 94-91 by sinking a couple of free throws with 1:18 left, but the Americans escaped when Jokic missed a wild bank shot after Serbia's excellent D lulled Irving into an iso-ball miss, followed by the errant triple from Bogdanovic.
Irving was Team USA's top scorer with 15 points, with Jordan chipping in 13 and Durant, George and Anthony scoring 12 each.
Jokic scored a team-best 25 points for the Serbs, Raduljica had 18 points before fouling out and Teodosic scored 18.
The Streak: That's now 72 wins in a row and counting for Krzyzewski and Team USA; 20 consecutive victories in Olympic play, 19 in FIBA World Cup tournaments, 10 in Olympic qualifiers and another 23 wins in exhibition games. The Americans previously tasted defeat in the semifinals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship against Greece and launched this streak on Sept. 2, 2006, with a 96-81 victory over Argentina in the bronze-medal game in Japan.
Play Of The Game: The bucket, in truth, probably shouldn't have counted.
DeMarcus Cousins sure looked as if he traveled before the fancy 360 spin at midcourt that left Teodosic in the dust and enabled Cousins -- at 6-foot-11 and 270 pounds -- to sail in for an uncontested to dunk after his guard-worthy pirouette for an 8-0 Team USA lead.
But if they didn't call it ... why not savor the spectacle?
Rest assured that Cousins, after picking up two fouls in less than three minutes in each of the last two games, surely enjoyed the moment. He actually racked up nine fouls in less than 19 minutes in those two outings, but Boogie made it all the way to the third quarter before picking up his first Friday night, thus keeping Serbia high on the list of Cousins' favorite all-time opponents in the pros.
The way he changed the game against the Serbs in the 2014 FIBA World Cup final in Spain remains Cousins' finest hour in a national team jersey, yet this was an important performance, too. Krzyzewski sees Cousins as a critical component of this team and told him so after the struggles with foul trouble.
The Sacramento Kings' center totaled five points and three rebounds -- but only two fouls -- in 21 minutes.
Krzyzewski said of the advice he gave Cousins: "I said, 'Look,you're a human being, you should be frustrated. [But] let's just move on to the next thing and see if we can handle that going forward, because we need you.' In the amount of minutes he's been in there, he's performed very well. We need him to play more."
Numbers Game: The United States extends its win streak to 72, but this was one of its closest calls during the streak. It's just the fourth time during those 72 games that they won by five or fewer points.
Fresh off becoming the all-time leading men's scorer in U.S. Olympic history, Anthony showed up for work Friday needing 24 rebounds to surpass David Robinson as Team USA's all-time top boards man.
He wound up pulling in three rebounds against the Serbs, leaving him 21 shy.
The current leaderboard:
Krzyzewski said coming into the Serbia game that he didn't want to make a change at center in the starting lineup because he wanted Cousins, despite his foul trouble throughout the tournament, to "try to adapt to how" tightly games are being called in Rio.
But Klay Thompson, one of Krzyzewski's favorites dating to the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain, came off the bench for the second straight game as he tries to find his shot after some serious struggles through Team USA's first three games.
Thompson shot 3-for-20 from the field, including a frigid 2-for-13 from 3-point range, in his first three games in Rio. In nine minutes Friday night, Thompson didn't fare much better, going 1-for-6, his only make a 3-pointer on three attempts from beyond the arc.
Durant needed 21 points against Serbia to pass Charles Barkley for the fifth-highest total in U.S. Olympic history. He wound up with 12.
What's Next: The Americans play France on Sunday in their first afternoon game of these Olympics and their final Group A game.
Yet even at 4-0, Team USA hasn't clinched first place in the group yet. The Tony Parker-led French could still force a three-way tie at the top, provided they beat Venezuela later Friday night and upset the United States in Sunday's finale.
In the unlikely event France manufactures that upset and forces a three-way tie atop the group, scoring differential between the tied teams will be used as the tiebreaker to seed the top three nations in Group A. The top four teams from the group advanced to next week's quarterfinals.