LONDON — Australia’s Liz Cambage, all 6-foot-8 of her, was having the vaunted U.S. women’s basketball team for an early British dinner, feasting on it as if it were delicious fish and chips.
Establishing position in the low post against her smaller foes, Cambage rang up 19 points by halftime, making 8 of 12 shots and the Australians had a 47-43 lead at halftime. All that was at stake in Thursday’s Olympic semifinal was a dynasty — an American Olympic women’s basketball dynasty.
But the biggest upset of the Olympics was avoided. The U.S., searching for its fifth straight gold medal and 40th straight Olympic win, harassed Cambage in the second half and the Americans escaped with an 86-73 victory at North Greenwich Arena.
It left the U.S. in the gold-medal game tomorrow against France and Cambage in near tears. She wound up scoreless in the second half, managing just one shot against America’s new, fierce defensive alignment.
“We came out fighting and went down fighting,’’ Cambage said. “It’s hard. They found out a way and shut me down. They started double-teaming me. They pressured us in the second half, really upped their defense. They came out fired up after halftime.’’
The Americans tried everything and everyone against the burly Cambage, even putting the finesse backup small forward Candace Parker on her. Backup Asija Jones and 6-5 center Tina Charles also took turns.
“Look at their bench, they’re all starters,’’ said the 20-year-old Cambage, who created a Twitter controversy with a mention of Kobe Bryant’s cavorting with groupies two days ago. “They’re the leaders of basketball in the world.’’
Sue Bird, of Syosset, finished with 13 points on 6 of 8 shooting and Diana Taurasi and Charles each finished with 14 points. But it was defense that did it after Australia went up by as many as seven points in the second quarter.
“I would love to say it was strategic on my part but it was desperation,’’ said Team USA coach Geno Auriemma of UConn. “We couldn’t guard their post people. They were killing us.’’
“We just talked about taking more pride on defense,’’ Tamika Catchings added. “We had to figure out a different way to defend [Cambage]. She came out and our post players got destroyed.”
In the signature play early in the fourth quarter, Cambage held the ball in the high post for an extra second when Maya Moore darted toward her, snatched the ball and raced in for a breakaway layup. Australia’s spirit was crushed. The Americans’ aggressive defense sparked their transition offense.
“She was able to get a lot of deep posts really started putting our post players on their back and sealing them, creating easy buckets,’’ Bird said. “Obviously we had to put the work in early and not let her get so deep. When she did catch it, we had to try to get it out of her hands and make her pass.’’
The Americans had won each of their first six games and in none of those contests did their opponent finish the game within 25 points of Team USA.
“There was really no panic,’’ Bird said. “We took their best shot. Things couldn’t have gone any better for them and we were only down four. We weren’t deterred or had our heads low. We knew these games would be like this. Everyone thinks it will be a steamroll but it’s not always the case.’’
In fact, Australia traditionally is USA’s toughest foe and a gold medal now appears a given for the Americans.
“We knew coming in at some point if you want to win the gold medal you have to beat Australia,’’ Auriemma said. “Whether you have to beat them in the semis or finals you still have to beat them. But hopefully our players don’t think this was the gold-medal game.’’