{"id":23742,"date":"2024-07-30T11:31:44","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T11:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=23742"},"modified":"2024-07-30T11:59:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T11:59:54","slug":"paris-2024-usa-hammer-japan-102-76-in-womens-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=23742","title":{"rendered":"Paris 2024: USA hammer Japan 102-76 in Women\u2019s Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>2 Minute, 21 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

A\u2019ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Brittney Griner dominated the paint and helped the U.S. win its\u00a0Olympic opener\u00a0as the Americans chase an unprecedented eighth straight gold medal.<\/p>\n

Wilson had 24 points, 13 rebounds and 4 blocked shots to help the U.S. beat Japan 102-76 on Monday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoints in the paint and controlling the boards are going to be huge for us moving forward,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cSo if we can continue that, I feel like we\u2019re in good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart scored 22 points and the Americans now have a\u00a056-game Olympic winning streak\u00a0that dates to the 1992 Barcelona Games.<\/p>\n

The U.S. also beat Japan in the final at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago for its seventh straight gold medal.<\/p>\n

Now Monday\u2019s victory tipped off the run to keep that streak going.<\/p>\n

A\u2019ja Wilson #9 of Team USA (Photo by Garrett Ellwood\/NBAE via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played this team for a gold medal, you know, not too long ago. And the way they play is unorthodox. They shoot a lot of threes. They\u2019re fast. They make you play in a different style,\u201d said Diana Taurasi, who is trying to win an unprecedented sixth gold medal. \u201cAnd I think you saw those different moments where we struggled a little bit, and then we got used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart, who is playing in her third Olympics, said there were some nerves before the game.<\/p>\n

A\u2019ja Wilson #9 of Team USA (Photo by Garrett Ellwood\/NBAE via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to get this first win under our belt. A team like Japan is a dangerous team if you really let them get going and us to just kind of build that trust on the fly I think is really important,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cAnd now we kind of know the tone and the standard of, you know, what we\u2019re going to do game in and game out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Japan, which was severely undersized against the U.S., used its frenetic style of shooting 3s off drives to the basket to try and keep the game close.<\/p>\n

It worked for about 17 minutes as Japan only trailed 37-32 with 3:01 left before the half.<\/p>\n

Kahleah Copper #7 of Team USA shoots the ball during the game against Team Japan (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant\/NBAE via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The U.S. then scored 13 of the final 19 points before break, including a three-point play by Wilson with 8.2 seconds left to open up a double-digit lead.<\/p>\n

The Americans, who next play on Thursday against Belgium, put the game away in the third quarter. Chelsea Gray had nifty passes to Wilson for easy scores and the U.S. was off and running. Japan never threatened.<\/p>

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A\u2019ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Brittney Griner dominated the paint and helped the U.S. win its\u00a0Olympic opener\u00a0as the Americans chase an unprecedented eighth straight gold medal. Wilson had 24 points,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"yes","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23793,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742\/revisions\/23793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}