France get by Russia to book a place in the Final –Olympics Women Basketball – First Half Breakdown
On Thursday night, the French Women Basketball team, in only their second ever appearance at the event, qualified for the final against USA.
Team France dominated proceedings from the get go and despite facing a slight set back in their productivity, came back strongly in the second quarter to put the game beyond any doubt. Things started off with Emilie Gomis and Sandrine
Gruda helping the French team race out to an 8-0 lead and setting a positive tone for the remaining time in the matchup.
It took the Russians almost three minutes of the first quarter to get to get their scoring started as they put up the next 5 points in the ball game. At the 4:00 mark of the first quarter, Becky Hammon knocked in a deuce and followed
it up with a three pointer to make the scores 10-12 with 3:35 remaining in the stanza.
However France put an end to the Russian rally as they scored the next six points of the ball game. They closed out the first quarter with a 5-0 run to hold a 24-15 advantage.
From the 3:35 mark of the first period till there were 7:10 remaining in the first half, France outscored the Russians 17 to 5 to hold a comfortable lead in the matchup. At the 6:52 mark of the second quarter, Alena Danilochkina
put an end to French scoring run by knocking down a three pointer. But, Gruda replied back with a deuce on the next possession.
The Russians followed that up with an another three pointer but the French had Edwige Lawson-Wade to answer the call as she knocked down a three pointer with 5:20 remaining in the first half. From the 3:21 mark till the 1:09 mark
of the second quarter, the Russians put together a 6-2 run to cut the French lead down to 9 points.
In the last minute of the second, Russia had a 4-2 advantage as Danilochkina knocked down two free throws to make the quarter scored 16-14 in her teams’ favour. However the dominating first quarter from France allowed them to still
hold a 7 point lead at the interval.
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