U.S. women’s basketball eases past Serbia, will play for 7th straight gold medal

By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer

SAITAMA, Japan — Brittney Griner had 15 points and 12 rebounds to help the U.S. beat Serbia, 79-59, on Friday (Thursday night PT) to advance to another Olympic gold-medal game.

The Americans are now one win away from a seventh consecutive gold medal, which would match the U.S. men’s team that won seven Olympic titles in a row from 1936-68.

It would also give Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi five gold medals – the most ever by a basketball player in the Olympics. The Americans will face either Japan or France on Sunday (Saturday, 7:30 p.m. PT).

The U.S. got a scare when Taurasi, grimacing and appearing to rub her left hip after a collision, left the game midway through the third quarter. U.S. trainer Ed Ryan was talking with Taurasi when she went to the bench and she didn’t return. Taurasi missed the three exhibitions in Las Vegas with a hip pointer but appeared to be moving fine during timeouts.

The U.S., which beat both France and Japan in pool play, has won 54 consecutive Olympic games now dating to the semifinals of the 1992 Barcelona Games.

The Americans got off to another strong start for the second straight game. Trailing 4-3, they went on a 20-4 run to take control with a berth in the gold medal game on the line. Griner had four points on one possession. She hit two free throws after a foul was upgraded to an unsportsmanlike one and then scored on a nifty pass from Breanna Stewart and the Americans led 25-12 after one quarter.

Neither team could really get much going for the first few minutes of the second quarter as there were more missed shots and turnovers than points. Serbia cut the deficit to nine points behind Yvonne Anderson, who played at Texas and became a Serbian naturalized citizen last year to play in the Olympics. She finished with a team-high 15 points.

The U.S. scored the next nine points, a run started by A’ja Wilson’s three-point play and led 41-23 at halftime. The lead ballooned to 23 points in the third quarter before the Serbia reserves started pressing and cut the deficit to 14 late in the period. The Americans scored the final five points to put the game away.

Serbia rested its starters for most of the second half with the bronze medal game roughly 24 hours away. The country won the bronze in the 2016 Rio Games. Serbia, which didn’t start warming up for the game until 25 minutes before tip, shot just 30% from the field – including missing 15 of its 19 3-point attempts.

More to come on this story.

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