Lisa Leslie is homing in on a fourth straight Olympic gold medal with Team USA, and she’s entered the record books along the way. Leslie set a new women’s team mark in Wednesday’s 97-41 win over Mali by making all seven of her shots from the floor in her points haul of 16.
Current USA teammate Katie Smith had shot six of six from the field at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, something that former teammate Nikki McCray did as well at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
"Records are made to be broken," Leslie said. "It was good. We just wanted to get the win.”
Most people are predicting that world champions Australia will meet the United States in the gold medal game, but USA coach Anne Donovan refuses to look that far ahead. “We are not thinking about Australia and that’s an honest answer,” Donovan said.
“We’ve not been here together long enough to think ahead. That’s the best part of this team and they’ve really stayed in the moment, everyday whether it’s practice or a game, we’re focused on getting better so it when it comes to the gold medal game, comes to the quarter-finals, comes to the semi-finals, we’re getting better and we are today.”
Russia upset the United States in the semi-finals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Brazil. “There is no script that says Australia and the United States will be in that gold medal game,” Donovan said. “There is a lot of work to do for us and we’re not looking ahead.”
The United States squandered a 15-point first quarter lead but much improved in the second half to beat Spain 93-55 for their fourth streak win in the Beijing Olympic women's basketball tournament on Friday.
Tina Thompson scored nine of her 17 points during the decisive third quarter run and Lisa Leslie added 14 points and 11 rebounds to help the U.S. top Spain.
