FIBA – It’s official now; It’s a USA-Opals final!

BEIJING (Olympics) - Defending Olympic champions USA and FIBA World Champions Australia set up their third successive clash for the women’s basketball gold medal on Thursday.

USA have beaten Australia in the finals of both the previous Olympics. They won 73-64 at Athens 2004 and 76-54 at Sydney 2000.

USA struggled initially, but brooked no answers once they found their rhythm, to beat EuroBasket 2007 winners Russia 67-52. Australia followed suit dashing a billion hopes while overpowering hosts China 90-56.

The finals and the bronze medal play-off are scheduled for Saturday, the penultimate day of the Olympics.

An Australia-USA final has been one of the best made predictions of this Olympics itself.

And both the coaches were aware of the task ahead.

“All of the media’s been talking about USA-Australia since the Diamond Ball tournament,” USA coach Anne Donovan said.

“We’ve done our job to get there and I know both teams will come out and play hard and it’ll be a great match.”

“For anyone to beat Team USA with the depth they have, we are going to have to produce our ‘A’ game of the tournament without question,” Australia coach Jan Stirling said.

“For us it’s a third time round the track,” Stirling said.

“We are desperate. We have to take care of business on the court. We have to have a lot of passion but we cannot be emotional about it.”

Australia went into their semi-final without key player Penny Taylor, who injured her ankle during the quarter-final win against the Czech Republic. But that seemed to matter very little to the Opals.

A balanced attack, led by Belinda Snell’s 16 points, more than compensated for Taylor’s absence, as the Aussies raced away in the second quarter outscoring the Chinese 21-7 for a 34-18 lead at the half-time.

That 16 point moved a notch up to 18 at the end of the third quarter, but the Aussies were in full force in the final ten minutes to wrap up a 44-point win.

Point guard, Kristi Harrower had 14 points, while Lauren Jackson poured in 11.

Suzy Batkovic had a game-high 13 rebounds to go with her 10 points.

“It was a pleasing result for us to beat the host nation,” Stirling said.

“China have played well in the tournament with the exception of their defeat to Team USA. We knew we had a challenge. We cranked up the defense.”

Bian Lan led the scoring for the Chinese with a game-high 20 points.

“The Australians are a much better team than us,” China coach Tom Maher said.

“We weren’t able to execute our game plan. One thing is getting beaten, another thing getting whipped,” added Maher who had coached Australia to the silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Team USA struggled, like their men counterparts had in the quarter-finals on Tuesday, for a major portion of their game tonight. And again, like for their men, the American women’s defense came in handy when the offense didn’t click

The Russians led by three points at the end of the first quarter and enhanced it 38-33 early in the second quarter. That’s when USA began to move with their customary cohesion.

Tina Thompson scored four points, Katie Smith and Diana Taurasi sunk a three-pointer each; and Lisa Leslie came up with a lay-up as the USA surged on a 12-0 run and the Americans went on to lead 48-40 going into the fourth quarter.

Sylvia Fowles joined the party scoring five, of her eight points for the game, in the fourth quarter as the USA raced away to their sixth final appearance in seven Olympics looking for their fourth successive gold medal.

“We knew if we came into this tournament and didn’t shoot the ball well as was the case today, we would have to rely on our defense,” USA coach Anne Donovan said.

“It came to that tonight.”

Taurasi led the scoring with a game-high 21 points, and collected nine rebounds as the USA won the battle of boards 52-33.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy as Russia is a very balanced team,” said Taurasi.

Fowles led the rebounds with 10 collections. Thompson accounted for 15 points, with four rebounds.

“Our defense was constant, we knew that as long as we kept getting stops we’d be okay,” Katie Smith said.

“We knew that at some point in the Olympics we’d have a rough offensive game.”

The USA had 22 steals, compared to Russia’s eight.

“We knew we had to defend or else it was going to be a long night,” Donovan said. “Our girls did that very well.”

Russians did well in the first half, but their American import Becky Hammon was a non-participant.

The CSKA Moscow guard, who took Russian citizenship earlier this year, scored her first point of the game – a free-throw conversion – in the early moments of the fourth quarter and found her only field success with 2:52 left in the game.

“There were two people on me every time,” Hammon said.

“They are very quick to get the ball out of my hands. I did my best, sometimes it’s better than other days, the effort was there. We still have another game.”

Maria Stepanova was the highest scorer for Russia with 14 points.

Scores

USA 67 (Diana Taurasi 21, Tina Thompson 15) bt Russia 52 (Maria Stepanova 14, Tatiana Schegoleva 12, Ilona Korstin 11). Quarterwise Scores: 13-16, 33-32, 48-40.

Australia 90 (Belinda Snell 16, Kristi Harrower 14, Lauren Jackson 11, Suzy Batkovic 10, Laura Summerton 10) bt China 56 (Bian Lan 20, Miao Lijie 10). Quarterwise Scores: 13-11, 34-18, 57-39.

FIBA