PARIS – After the best night of his basketball life, Joel Embiid walked through the exit area of ​​the Bercy Arena on Thursday with his head held high, clapped Anthony Edwards on the hand and dried his sweaty face, more calm than ever before.

The 7 minutes and 11 seconds of play that changed everything for him at these Olympics and might mark the beginning of a new and better phase of his career with the 76ers were over. Seeing Embiid so serene reminded me of dozens of regular season NBA games when he was great and the Sixers had won and his world would be perfect until the postseason began. Except that 95-91 semifinal win over Serbia was as important and as big a test as any playoff game any member of Team USA had ever experienced, and Embiid had done about as well as anyone not named Steph Curry. Nineteen points, four rebounds, a big blocked shot and those 7:11 minutes in the fourth quarter when he, Curry, LeBron James and Kevin Durant carried the Americans to a 17-point comeback.

For his part, Embiid downplayed the comparison between a series-ending playoff game and this nail-biting bronze-medal match that turned into one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history. “Two completely different things,” he said. “Tonight, you’re playing with some of the best players who’ve ever played, with Steph, LeBron, KD. Everyone had to do different things. Like I said from the beginning, this is a learning experience for me – sit back, do the little things and when you’re needed, do what you have to do.”

For the record, here’s what Embiid did when he re-entered the game with 7:19 left in regulation on Thursday and the U.S. trailing by eight points: He sank a pull-up jump shot with 5:52 left to make it 82-77. With five minutes to go, he sank an and-one and then sank the free throw: Serbia 84, Team USA 80. On the U.S.’s next possession, he hit a fadeaway over Nikola Jokić with 4:17 left to cut Serbia’s lead to two points.

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Eventually, Jokić let up a little, a clear sign that he was truly willing to do the dirtiest work in the name of victory. Embiid made a devastating block to free up Curry, who made a three-pointer – the ball seemed to bob on the rim for 5 seconds before falling through – to give the U.S. its first lead of the second half, 85-84.

“I knew Jokić had four (fouls),” said Embiid, who was taken out of the game for a good 5-0 with 8.2 seconds left in the final whistle. “So he didn’t want to move up and I had a lot of space. And when you’re playing with the best shooter of all time, you just have to let him have free rein, especially on a night like tonight.”

Yes, Curry was truly remarkable: 36 points, 12 of 19 field goals, 9 of 14 three-pointers, perhaps the best shooting performance in an international game this century. And yet the U.S. needed everything Embiid offered. “We have a lot of great talent on the team,” Embiid said. “Tonight was different. I had to score more, attack, everything it takes to win. We knew it was going to be a challenge. When you play a team three times, you’re not always going to beat them by 20 or more points.”

Forget the 20-point win over Serbia. For three quarters, it looked like the U.S. team would suffer the fate of the big favorites that failed to finish – the 1980 Soviet hockey team, the 1983 Houston Cougars, the 2007 New England Patriots. Serbia was so good, getting one free chance after another and scoring even when the U.S. defense was solid.

“They played a perfect game,” said US coach Steve Kerr. “Our coaches said: ‘Villanova – Georgetown.'”

A great comparison for a while. But the beauty of the talent and depth of the U.S. team — in a game where the shot clock is still 24 seconds away — is that that talent and depth can overwhelm even an opponent playing flawless basketball. Jokić is arguably the best player in the world right now, but Serbia demands so much of him, and Embiid was a little fresher and a little faster at the end on Thursday.

“He’s our best option against Jokić because he can score and make him work on the other end,” Kerr said. “Joel’s work in the second half forced Jokić to defend and maybe that tired him out a little bit for the final stretch.”

Many fans and Sixers supporters feel that Embiid is in a hopeless situation here at the Olympics. When he plays like he did Thursday, he’s on a team full of Hall of Famers. He should be great. And when he has one or two bad games – like the games he had during Team USA’s tryouts and earlier in this tournament – that’s when he shows his true colors.

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He’s had to adjust, to figure out when he can be the offensive force he always is for the Sixers and when he needs to do other, more subtle things to help his team win, and it was reasonable to doubt whether he could do that. The beauty of that semifinal game was that he did both — the big things and the little things. Without Embiid, this Olympic team, USA Basketball and pretty much all of America would have spent days, months, maybe years wondering what the hell happened that August night in Paris at Bercy Arena. Now there’s just Saturday’s gold medal game against France. Can he answer those kinds of questions next spring, when the Sixers are back in the playoffs? For the first time in a long time, Joel Embiid gave every reason to believe he can.