SAITAMA, Japan — The dynasty continues.
The U.S. women’s basketball team won its seventh straight Olympic gold medal, defeating Japan, 90-75, as the Games wrapped up on Sunday.
Japan was making its first appearance in the gold medal game, and given these Games had a pretty sizable support squad, dozens of Japanese volunteers were in the stands behind one of the baskets.
Their countrywomen gave a valiant effort — Japan’s on-court speed is impressive and crafty point guard Rui Machida is fun to watch — but they just couldn’t stop the U.S. duo of Britney Griner and A’ja Wilson.
At 6-foot-9 Griner is a full eight inches taller than Japan’s tallest player, and it allowed her to go to work inside offensively and control the paint defensively. Her 30 points (on 14-of-18 shooting) are a new women’s gold medal game record, surpassing the 29 points Lisa Leslie had in 1996 against Brazil.
Griner also had five rebounds and three blocks.
Wilson, the 2020 WNBA MVP who wins her first Olympic gold on her 25th birthday, had 19 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
To try to stay out of the post where they were clearly going to struggle, Japan turned to the three-pointer. They shot 31 as a team, but only eight were made. The long rebounds off some of those misses became easy transition buckets for USA.
Team USA outscored Japan 58-40 on points in the paint.
Up nine after one quarter and 11 points at halftime, the Americans really took control in the third quarter, going up by as many as 24 points after a Breanna Stewart three-pointer.
Dawn Staley has now won Olympic gold as a player, assistant coach and head coach; she is also the first Black coach to lead the women’s team.
Several members of the U.S. men’s team, who won gold on Saturday, were in the stands, as was Megan Rapinoe — the U.S. soccer bronze medalist and Bird are engaged. With so few athletes able to have family and significant others in Tokyo due to COVID-19, Bird and Rapinoe were the rare couple who got to celebrate together, embracing for a few moments after the final buzzer.
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