USA women’s basketball team start chase for eighth straight gold with Japan rout

A’ja Wilson scored 24 points and Breanna Stewart added 22, leading the U.S. to a 102-76 victory over Japan on Monday night in the opening game of the Olympic Games for both teams.

The Americans now have a winning streak of 56 Olympic games behind them, since the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

The last of those victories before Monday also came against Japan when the two teams played for the gold medal at the Tokyo Games three years ago. The U.S. won 90-75 to earn its seventh straight gold medal.

Monday’s victory kicked off a streak that continues.

Japan, severely underpowered compared to the U.S., was shooting three-pointers off drives to try to keep the game close. It worked for a while: Japan trailed only 37-32 with three minutes left before halftime. The U.S. then scored 13 of the final 19 points before halftime to create a double-digit lead.

The Americans, who play Belgium on Thursday, decided the game in the third quarter. Chelsea Gray fed Wilson clever passes for easy scores and the US got going. Japan was no longer a threat after that.

Maki Takada scored 24 points and Mai Yamamoto added 17 for Japan, which made 15 three-pointers. The U.S. made just four of its 20 three-pointers.

This was Brittney Griner’s first international match since she was jailed in Russia in 2022 for drug possession and smuggling. Playing for her country again seemed a far-fetched idea at the time. She was released ten months later in a high-profile prisoner swap.

Now, 19 months later, she is playing for the US at the Olympic Games in Paris, her first time playing overseas since returning from Russia.

Griner was huge in the 2021 gold medal game, scoring 30 points, the most a U.S. player scored in a gold medal game. She had 11 points and nine rebounds on Monday. With Wilson grabbing 13, the Americans had a commanding 56-27 lead on the boards.

The US had a scary moment in the second quarter when Kahleah Copper collided with Rui Machida and was down for a minute before getting up and walking away, holding her end. She returned in the fourth quarter and appeared unharmed.