Home Cruises United States cruises to seventh consecutive gold medal in girls’s basketball

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United States cruises to seventh consecutive gold medal in girls’s basketball

August 8, 2021

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SAITAMA, Japan — The USA women’s basketball team won its seventh straight gold medal and its 55th straight Olympic game Sunday, beating Japan, 90-75, in the gold medal game at Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo.

The US hasn’t lost since 1992, four years before the WNBA played its first game.

Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi – best friends and former UConn teammates – won their fifth gold medals in what they have said will be their last Olympics. Bird’s wife, soccer star Megan Rapinoe, found a way to be courtside even though athletes from different sports generally have not been allowed to attend each other’s games because of COVID protocols.

The easiest storylines for this team were the Bird-Taurasi farewell tour and the rise of Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson, two dominant young players who will be USA mainstays for several Olympics to come.

Sunday, the USA’s most dominant player was someone not on the cusp of retirement, and not new to Olympic dominance. Center Brittney Griner, who is 30, dominated Japan in the paint, frustrating the host team’s cutting offense and scoring easily inside.

Griner was the difference in this game and with the Paris Olympics just three years away, there is no reason to believe she won’t be teaming with Stewart and Wilson while paying homage to the Eiffel Tower.

Griner scored 30 points before Lynx star Sylvia Fowles replaced her midway through the fourth quarter. Griner scored 30 points, the most ever by an American in a gold-medal game.

The US got off to a fast start, largely due to Griner’s presence.

When Stewart made a fast-break layup, the US led, 10-2. But from that point until late in the second quarter, Japan played the US tough. It was 38-30 when the US went on an 8-0 run culminating in Griner scoring inside, making it 46-30.

But Japan closed the first half strong, cutting the lead to 50-39.

In the first half the US wasn’t efficient in its half-court offense but played strong interior defense and used blocked shots and steals to score in transition. The US shot 69 percent on two-point shots in the first half, while making 2 of 6 three-pointers.

Perhaps the most telling statistic in the first half was this:

The US blocked eight shots. Japan blocked zero.

Griner used her height and Stewart used her long arms to block and alter a dozen of Japan’s shots. Japan’s creative, quick offense continually produced lanes to the basket, but often those lanes led to a fast-closing defender.

Griner also scored easily inside. She hit 9 of her 10 first-half shots, going into the break with 18 points, four rebounds, one steal and two blocks. Stewart had three blocks.

Neither Minnesota Lynx player on the roster – Fowles or Napheesa Collier – played in the first half. USA coach Dawn Staley tightened her rotation after the USA’s relative struggles early in the Olympic tournament.

Both played in the fourth quarter. Fowles produced two points and two rebounds. Collier grabbed one rebound.

The US lost the WNBA all-stars and then Australia in midsummer exhibitions, and won its Olympic opener by a mere nine points over Nigeria.

The US got progressively better, blew out Australia in the semifinal and coasted to another gold.

By the last few minutes of the game, the US players were hugging on the bench. They’re used to winning, but they are hardly taking it for granted.

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