SAITAMA, Japan — Kevin Durant couldn’t help it. He had heard the doubt, “the noise,” all natural consequences of the U.S. men’s basketball team’s early struggles at these Olympics. And so, walking up a stairwell deep inside the Saitama Super Arena, he turned a camera phone to his face.
He’d just won a gold medal, his third, with a typically transcendent first-half performance and a game-high 29 points in all. And as ever, the outsiders who thought he might not be capable floated to the forefront of his mind.
He addressed his message to “everybody who said we was gon’ take the L.