The United States are now one game away from achieving their goal but had to earn their way to the gold medal game with a hard-fought 89-68 victory over Serbia in the semi-finals of the FIBA U17 World Championship at Hamdan Sports Complex.

While the scoreboard reflects a blowout, the result isn’t indicative of how competitive Serbia were.

The Americans have been accustomed to having wins in hand before the end of the first half, but Serbia suffocated the highest-scoring team in the tournament by packing the paint on defence.

Serbia outscored the US 20-15 in a pivotal second quarter to narrow the halftime deficit to one posses­sion at 39-36.

“We told our kids Serbia have a history of giving the US a lot of trou­ble going back to the mid 2000s, games like this Serbia have won,” US coach Don Showalter said.

“Their team has been prepar­ing for us for the past couple years. But I thought our kids were pre­pared mentally and physically for a knock-down, tough game.”

The second half was a different story as the Americans refocused on offence and patiently probed the paint to the tune of 50 points in the third and fourth quarters. Leading the attack on the floor was point guard and captain Malik Newman, who scored a team-high 15 points.

“The guys trust me if they see I’m calm, they know everything is going to be OK, then they take my lead,” Newman said. “I just had to stay calm and stay focused.”

Showalter added: “Malik hasn’t played much point guard so he’s just kind of learning that role. Part of the role is leadership, get­ting the other four guys involved, doing what you have to do to raise the level of play. I think he’s just getting better and better at that. I think he’s going to be a true point guard in college and in the NBA.”

For Serbia, their point guard Stefan Peno was the catalyst as well, finishing with 18 points and a game-high four assists. However, while Serbia were able to hang with the US in a defensive battle during the first half, their offence couldn’t match the Americans’ rise in play as the game wore on.

The win propels US to the final, where anything short of a third-straight gold medal would be seen as a disappointment.

“We didn’t come here for any­thing less than gold,” said Show­alter. “Our kids will be ready, both teams will be really good, so it’s going to be another really good gold medal game tomorrow.”

Newman echoed his coach, add­ing: “We’re not wasting our time coming out here all those days in training camp and practices. All the guys have passion when they’re playing and the gold medal is what we came down here for. Anything other than that, then we came here for no reason.”