France get by Russia to book a place in the Final – Olympics Women Basketball – Second Half Breakdown
The French Women Basketball history made history on Thursday night as they made it to their first ever final at the event by defeating Russia 81-64.
Despite facing a stiff competition from the Russians in the second quarter, France still managed to bring in a 7 point lead from the interval. That lead was quickly chipped down to 5 as Alena Danilochkina opened up the scoring
in the second half.
France started their scoring tally in the second half with Emilie Gomis slipping in both of her free throws. At the other end, Becky Hammon fired from the long range and chipped the French lead down to only 4 points.
The Russians continued to storm back into the game and at the 6:37 mark of the third, Natalya Vodopyanova connected on two free throws to put the Russians within touching distance at 40-42. But with almost 5 and half minutes remaining
in the stanza, Gomis stepped to make a timely three pointer, putting an end to the momentum the Russians had built. Dumerc followed with one from the land of three nearly a minute later and France held an 8 point lead at the close of three quarters.
The fourth quarter of this semi-final matchup saw France put things beyond any doubt as they held the Russians to only 13 points while adding 22 points to their tally. Endéné Miyem and Sandrine Gruda scored the first 6 points of
the quarter for France while Danilochkina only managed to score a deuce for her team at the other end.
And that was just the start of the French domination down the stretch. From the 6:09 mark till the 3:44 mark in the final quarter, France put together an 11 to nothing run to take a comfortable 20 point lead in the matchup.
This allowed team France to play out the remaining time in the game with relative ease and despite getting outscored 8-5 in the final three and a half minutes, the win was never threatened. The Europeans will now take on a red
hot American team, who have not lost a game on their way to the finals.
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