PARIS — Once again, Stephen Curry barely made a peep. Once again, his teammates made sure it didn’t matter.

Curry and his U.S. men’s basketball team played their first game in Paris on Tuesday night, after three group-play wins 140 miles north near Lille. The change of venue really changed nothing, as head coach Steve Kerr’s crew breezed to a 122-87 victory over Brazil in the Olympic quarterfinals at Bercy Arena.

The Americans advanced to meet Nikola Jokic and Serbia in Thursday’s semifinals. They advanced because Devin Booker led the way with 18 points — the fourth different player to lead the U.S. in scoring in its four Olympic games — and also because LeBron James did a fine impersonation of Magic Johnson.

James had nine assists Tuesday, after also pocketing nine Saturday against Puerto Rico. He’s essentially controlling games with his passing, setting up teammates for easy layups or open jumpers.

Curry made two shots from the field, both open layups on passes from James.

“That’s the joke — he’s the all-time leading scorer as a pass-first guy,” Curry said. “Bron has a knack, with his size and floor vision, for being able to make pretty much any pass. … He’s done a great job getting us in the right actions.”

Kerr foreshadowed this at last month’s training camp in Las Vegas. He talked about putting the ball in James’ hands as often as possible, to take advantage of his vision and passing and also to give Curry more freedom to move without the ball.

That hasn’t led to Curry springing free for open shots as much as Kerr might have envisioned. But it’s still helping the U.S. operate smoothly on offense, scoring more than 100 points in each of its four (40-minute) games.

“That’s who LeBron is,” Kerr said. “For a guy who truly is a point forward at heart, for him to be the leading scorer in NBA history, that’s kind of a secondary thing he does. It’s crazy, but that’s LeBron.

“He’s really kind of our point guard with this team. He’s playing at such a high level, and obviously he’s got so much talent around him. The game makes a lot of sense when he’s controlling it.”

Curry shot poorly in his two previous Olympic games, but he seldom shot at all Tuesday. He scored seven points while taking only three shots from the field in 16-plus minutes on the court.

Curry shifted gears against Brazil. First, he cleverly curled off a screen on an inbounds play, took a nice pass from James and scored on a layup.

Soon thereafter, Curry cranked up his off-ball movement once again, darting across the lane to create space. James found him again, this time for a sweeping, left-handed layup.

In the second quarter, Curry briefly sprung free on a Jrue Holiday screen and launched a 3-point shot despite tight defense. He drew a foul and made all three free-throw attempts.

“A lot of my job on this team is to create attention and open up shots for other guys,” Curry said. “I’m not getting a lot of them. So as long as I keep cutting hard, and playing off the ball, we have so many great passers, great finishers, great shooters, somebody is going to get a good look.”

Team USA was engaged defensively from the outset of Tuesday night’s game. The starting lineup –– Curry, James, Joel Embiid, Booker and Holiday –– built a 27-14 lead when it headed to the bench with 3:10 left in the first quarter.

Embiid led Team USA with 14 first-half points, including 3-for-3 shooting from long distance. He rolled his ankle late in the first half and didn’t play in the second half; James also needed four stitches after taking an inadvertent elbow near his eye.

The crowd in Paris showered Embiid with boos, much as it did last week outside Lille. The French fans were expressing their displeasure with Embiid’s decision to play for the United States instead of France in these Olympics.

He became a French citizen in 2022, but he also became a U.S. citizen later that year. Embiid, a Cameroon native, has lived in the U.S. as an adult. As he did last week amid the booing, Embiid responded by gesturing to the crowd, good-naturedly beckoning for more.

Brazil trimmed what had been a 19-point deficit to 42-34 with 4:10 left before halftime. That’s when the U.S. starters stepped on the gas, flying on a 21-2 run to stretch their lead to 63-36 at halftime.

Kevin Durant scored 11 points off the bench, giving him 594 in his Olympic career. That pushed him past Lisa Leslie (588) as the all-time leading scorer in USA Basketball Olympic history, male or female.

Tuesday’s win propelled the U.S. into the semifinals against Serbia, which outlasted Australia 95-90 in overtime earlier in the day. Germany and France tangle in the other semifinal.

The U.S. has beaten Serbia twice in the past three weeks, each time by 26 points. The Americans won 105-79 in an exhibition game July 17 in Abu Dhabi, then 110-84 in the Olympic group-play opener July 28.