The quest for Gold officially starts this afternoon (or evening – or morning for that matter depending on where you live). Tyrese Haliburton and Team USA open their Olympic Games with a familiar foe in Nikola Jokic and Serbia.

The teams faced each other in a tuneup game in Abu Dhabi just 11 days ago. Steph Curry was the star of that matchup, catching fire from three as you'd expect the greatest shooter of all time to do and propelling the Americans to a 105-79 victory.

Tyrese Haliburton was still in the rotation at that point. He logged 14 minutes of action, though he only took (and missed) a single three point shot in that span. After that game his playing time dwindled and he sat the entire game against Germany in the final exhibition.

Haliburton's box scores with Team USA may not jump off the screen, but the Gold Medal favorites have looked mortal in games where Tyrese didn't play more than 10 minutes. Feel free to argue correlation or causation – you know where I'm coming down on the matter.

How to Watch

Tipoff is at 11:15 AM ET.

TV: NBC, Peacock

See ya in the comments!

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