Kevin Durant fires Team USA past Serbia in near-perfect Olympic opener | USA Olympic team

LeBron James returned to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, Kevin Durant played for the first time this summer, and the two most experienced Olympians on the U.S. team opened the Paris tournament with a near-flawless performance as the U.S. beat Serbia 110-84 on Sunday.

Durant came off the bench and made his first eight shots for 23 points in just under 17 minutes. James added 21 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. The team shot 18 of 22 total from the field, with Durant making 8 of 9 and James making 9 of 13. The U.S. had no trouble winning against the World Cup silver medalists. Jrue Holiday scored 15 points for the U.S., Devin Booker added 12, and Anthony Edwards and Stephen Curry each added 11.

Durant missed most of the U.S. team’s pre-Olympic training with a calf injury and took the court for the first time this summer on Sunday, becoming the fifth substitute off the bench — effectively the 10th — for the U.S. team for just the fourth time in its past 1,320 games without starting.

But once on the court, Durant was his usual self, firing shots from every angle.

Three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic scored 20 points and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 14 points for Serbia.

Before the tournament began, Serbia coach Svetislav Pesic, whose team played against the 1992 U.S. Olympic Dream Team, said this U.S. team was even better than the first NBA star-studded squad that took the world by storm in Barcelona — a comment that U.S. coach Steve Kerr laughed off a few weeks ago.

“When Chuck Daly was coaching the Dream Team, he never took a timeout,” Carr said.

It took just three minutes of the Olympic game for Kerr to call the score. With Serbia leading 10-2, the U.S. was quickly in trouble. Kerr replaced Joel Embiid with Anthony Davis after the first stop, and things quickly turned around. A three-point play by James midway through the first period gave the U.S. its first lead, and a lob pass from James to Edwards put the U.S. ahead 25-20 at the end of the first period.

By then, Durant’s show was on. He capped off an 8-of-8 first-half performance with a collapsing fadeaway to put the team up 58-49 before the halftime buzzer, and the lead steadily grew from there. Edwards shook off Serbia’s Nikola Jovic for a nifty baseline score to make it 84-65 at the end of the third quarter, a play that prompted Curry to dance for joy and mimic a video-game controller on the sideline.

The U.S. men’s team is seeking a fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Paris and will be in action again on Tuesday, taking on emerging nation South Sudan in a rematch of a tough 101-100 U.S. victory in an exhibition match in London earlier this month.

Serbia is scheduled to play Puerto Rico on the same day, a potential loss for both teams.