The United States women's basketball team in action against the Czech Republic in their first preliminary (Getty Images).

After a tough opening five minutes, the United States women’s basketball team has cruised to a 45 point victory over China during their preliminary match on Monday.

After leading 14-11 five minutes into the game, the United States put on 19 unanswered points to lead by 22 at the first break. From then, the gap grew larger at every break before breaking the 100 point mark to win 108-63.

Tina Thompson top scored for the Americans with 27 points, including five rebounds and having 71 percent accuracy in shooting. Three other players also had scores in double digits.

Captain Miao Lijie top scored for China with 18 points, but was also the only player with five fouls to her name.

Results in other women’s basketball preliminaries on Day 3:
Spain defeated New Zealand 85-62
Czech Republic defeated Mali 81-47
Russian Fed. defeated Korea 77-72
Belarus defeated Latvia 79-57

The final match of the day between Australia and Brazil had just begun at the time of publishing.

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Tags: basketball, beijing olympics