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Australia entered the gold-medal game unbeaten and with the second-best offense of any team in the Olympics. Yet the Opals were unable to consistently create open looks and shot a dismal 25.0 percent from the field. With Penny Taylor hobbled by a sprained right ankle and able to contribute just six points on 1-of-7 shooting, too much offensive pressure fell to Aussie role players Kristi Harrower and Suzy Batkovic, who combined to shoot 5-of-28 from the field and 0-of-6 from three-point range.
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While the USA needed to win with defense in the semifinals against Russia because the team shot the ball poorly itself, this time the U.S. offense came through and allowed the team to pull away. With Belinda Snell scoring 10 of their first 13 points, the Opals took an early lead. The game changed late in the first quarter when Donovan went to her bench. With Seimone Augustus, Tamika Catchings, Sylvia Fowles, Kara Lawson and Candace Parker on the floor, the USA limited Australia to four points over an eight-minute span as part of a 24-4 run.
Lawson came up particularly big for the U.S., making all five of her shot attempts and finishing with a game-high 15 points. Parker (14 points in 10 minutes) and Fowles (13) gave the USA three double-figure scorers in reserve. By contrast, Australia got just 11 bench points.
"This is a team where you sub and the level of play most times goes up. They come in with such energy," said Storm and U.S. point guard 
Sue Bird. "I thought Kara Lawson was great tonight, in the first half she was hitting shots when we needed someone to hit shots. You can talk about Sylvia, Candace. Tamika Catchings to me was the difference maker."
After trailing by as many as 17 in the second quarter, the Opals had a chance to get the deficit to a more manageable number by halftime. Two 
Lauren Jackson free throws got Australia within 12, but Lawson scored on the USA's last two possessions of the half to push the lead back up to 17.
The Aussies were never able to find their shooting touch, but Jackson's dogged play (she finished with 20 points and 10 boards) and offensive rebound after offensive rebound helped keep them within striking distance through the early fourth quarter. It was a 13-point game when back-to-back Bird buckets sparked an 8-0 run which pushed the lead to 21.
Having scored consecutive buckets to give her 14 points and seven rebounds, Lisa Leslie got a curtain call on her historic USA Basketball career with 6:33 left in the game. Leslie won her fourth gold medal, joining Teresa Edwards as the only women's basketball players ever to achieve the milestone.
"It would be shameful to try to take all the credit for myself when I’ve had so many awesome teammates," Leslie said. "And so for me, I just pass that on to my teammates that will go on in the future to represent our country, it’s just giving it 110 percent and never saving anything for later. I have no regrets."
The gold capped an amazing run in Beijing that saw the USA win by an average of 37.6 points per game, easily the highest of any of the team's seven gold-medal finishes in the nine Olympics where women's basketball has been contested. Previously, the 1984 Los Angeles team won six games by an average of 32.7 points, while the 1996 Atlanta team (+28.6) had been the most dominant in the current run of four straight golds.
The victory and dominance were especially sweet in the wake of the U.S. women taking bronze in the 2006 FIBA World Championships.
"To be in Brazil two years ago playing for a bronze medal to where we are right now and in the way we won is incredible," said Bird, the starting point guard on both teams. "I couldn't be happier right now, more proud of everyone on this team, including the coaching staff and all the support staff. It’s been an incredible month and this is a wonderful way to cap it off."
By winning her second gold medal, Bird joined a group of 15 female players in USA Basketball history to win multiple golds. For Storm teammate Jackson and her fellow Opals, however, it was a bitter defeat. In the wake of winning the World Championship, Australia entered the Olympics legitimately aspiring to gold. Instead, the Aussies will settle for a third straight silver, having lost to the U.S. in each of those gold-medal games. This time was more lopsided than 2004, when Australia was competitive throughout the game.
"It really hurts," Jackson told FIBA.com. "I don't know what happened. I really don't know what happened to us tonight. We are going to talk about it after a while. It's hard, it's really hard. The Americans outclassed us today. They played a better game tonight than what we did."
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