The United States will now face Spain, which defeated Serbia 68-54 in the other semifinal.
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Basketball fans can now savour the prospect of a mouth-watering semi-final between the US and Spain that could double as an NBA All-Star game as both teams are stacked with NBA champions, All-Stars and most valuable players.
The United States women’s national basketball team has won five straight Olympic gold medals and look to make it six on Saturday.
France lost to the US by 36 points in the gold-medal game at the 2012 London Olympics and closed the gap over the next four years.
The team is now counting on Taurasi, a four-time Olympian, to lead the team while hoping Bird can play on Saturday.
The American had no complaints about her golf or her position at the halfway point of the first Olympic women’s golf competition since 1900. She missed the semifinal win over France as she was recovering from a sprained right knee capsule.
The record-tying trio are expected to be playing their last U.S. game, Bird only if she can overcome a right knee injury. “But if I can play, I’m definitely playing”.
“I know they are going to watch a lot of film and adjust some things”, McCoughtry said. No, better yet, it’ll be the greatest upset in the history of upsets.
Bird said the pain is down to about a “one or two out of 10”. “I think the attitude and example they set is probably one that the next group is going to benefit from more than anything else”.
She said the team should be competitive but also gracious and humble whether losing or winning. “As they showed yesterday it doesn’t matter who’s out there we have a really good team. I’m not going to do anything stupid”.
“Afterward, you didn’t need to be fluent in Spanish to piece together what the Spaniards” head coach Lucas Mondelo was saying when he compared this team of Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird, Tina Charles and Maya Moore, Brittany Griner and all the rest to the 1992 US men’s Dream Team of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson.
“We can move Diana (Taurasi) around a lot of different ways”, Auriemma said.
Coach Geno Auriemma said the decision is up to Bird whether she plays. The U.S. won that one by 36 points, but had a much harder time in this one without Bird. The Americans also beat Spain in the 2014 world championship by 13. On the Olympic front, the USA women’s volleyball team had not qualified for the Olympics in eight years.
The United States headed into its semifinals game against France knowing how great of an opponent they would be.
“If you took us out of this tournament”, Auriemma said, “it would be an unbelievable tournament”.
Even with that kind of sustained success by some very talented USA teams, this might be the best women’s basketball squad ever assembled. France trailed by four, 40-36.
It was only the second time in Rio that the USA didn’t reach 100 points in a game. They’ve kept the streak started by the 1996 team going and now the Americans have won 48 consecutive contests. The closest game this team played was a 19-point win in the quarterfinals over France (without Bird), and the average margin of victory for the Americans in the tournament was 37.2 points.
This game marked the end of Catchings’ Olympic career. Taurasi and Bird have hinted that this will be their final Olympics although both could still return in four years in Tokyo.
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“That’s the elephant in the room that no one is talking about”, Taurasi said.
