U.S. women’s basketball defeats Japan for seventh consecutive Olympic gold

Fifty-five.

It started with a bounce back, a recovery from a loss to leave Barcelona in 1992 with a bronze. That one win turned into a streak for the United States women’s basketball team in Atlanta, with Dawn Staley becoming the heartbeat of a team of legends as its point guard.

By the end of those games, it was nine in a row, the U.S. reclaiming gold. In Australia they won eight more, the winning streak building as quickly as their sports emerging footprint in America. In Athens, with new blood like Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird on the roster, they won eight more.

Over the next 17 years, the stacked wins and gold medals, building an unstoppable dynasty at the Olympics. The two-game winning streak Staley built in 1996? It had grown to an absurd 54 games by the time of Sunday’s Olympic game.

And to celebrate win No. 55, they were given gold.

For the seventh consecutive Olympics, no one was better in the Tokyo women’s basketball tournament, the Americans unbeaten and mostly unchallenged as they routed host Japan 90-75 on Sunday.

Brittney Griner scored 30, A’ja Wilson had 19 and the Americans never were threatened on their way to another dominant performance, icons of a U.S. program walking off the court again as champions.

The win closes one of the most prolific chapters in American athletic history, with Bird and Taurasi exiting the international stage after five Olympics and five gold medals. No one has ever accomplished the feat in the sport.

Their success on the court has only been exceeded by their influence off of it.

Taurasi is regarded as maybe the best women’s basketball player of all time, a Kobe Bryant disciple who was won at every level she’s ever competed at. Fighting through injuries to compete in Tokyo, Taurasi still flashed her signature combination of skill and swagger.

And Bird, at 40, still bounces around the floor like an over-caffeinated pinball, an endless source of energy. She’s been a pioneer in the game, has worked in the front office with the Denver Nuggets and helped advocate for women’s sports with her partner, U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe.

Fittingly, the game opened with Bird draining a jumper.

Replacing pillars without tearing down a structure is usually complicated, but the American basketball machine has continued to produce stars, the U.S. playing with unmatched size, aggression and skill compared to the rest of the world.

Monday in Japan is a national holiday called “Yama no Hi” — Mountain Day. One day before they celebrate the size and majesty of Mt. Fuji, the Japanese had to try score over Griner and Wilson.

Early in the final Japan’s Himawari Akaho, a 6-foot-1 forward, tried to drive past the 6-foot-9 Griner, with the American center easily swatting the ball out of bounds, left shaking her head at the audacity of Japan to try her. Then, later in the first quarter as if to remind everyone she’s more than just a big body, Griner confidently swished a mid-range jumper, Japan unable to stop her away from the basket too.

Tokyo Olympics Coverage

Her 30 points were the most scored by an American woman in a gold-medal game.

And then there was Wilson, the reigning WNBA most valuable player, putting her hands in the sky and holding the ball like it was a toy she was keeping away from a toddler. She bounced off over-matched and under-sized defenders for turnaround jumpers or sometimes simply went through them.

The two bigs, alongside Breanna Stewart and her inside-out skillset, should be the centerpieces of U.S. women’s basketball in international competitions moving forward.

Japan, to its credit, did its part to make the final entertaining despite the obvious physical mismatches. Playing in front of a few hundred volunteers that have made these Olympics function as smoothly as possible, the Japan used its quickness and craftiness to find open seams with backdoor cuts in the halfcourt while trying to hold down the turbo button in the full court.

But the optical contrasts told the story, never better than when 5-foot-3 guard Rui Machida went underneath a Griner screen by literally going underneath Griner, scrambling to crawl between the center’s legs.

The Americans were too big, too strong, too good in the Olympics — just like they have been the last 55 times they played.