Depth of US women's basketball wearing teams out

BEIJING (AP) With each new wave of players, coach Anne Donovan uses the U.S. women's basketball team's incredible depth to wear down Olympic opponents.

The Americans have run over their first three opponents in Beijing by an average of 47 points - a staggering number considering nobody on the team is playing more than 21 minutes a game. The only one over 20 is Tina Thompson, but that's partly because Donovan put her back in the game against China on Monday to give her a shot at breaking Lisa Leslie's scoring record.

"We have a luxury in that we don't have to play players 35 minutes a night to get wins," said reserve guard Kara Lawson, who has usually been the first player off the bench. "We can live in that 15 to 20 minutes per game range for our players and have great production. I think that's going to be huge as we move forward, the fact that we're so balanced and we can kind of just rotate everyone in and out."

The Americans' second unit of Lawson, Seimone Augustus, Tamika Catchings, Candace Parker, and Sylvia Fowles would do quite well as a team of their own. In Wednesday night's 97-41 win over Mali, the bench scored 54 points, and is averaging nearly 56 a game in the Olympics.

"Our second team could probably win a medal," starting forward Diana Taurasi said with a laugh after the U.S. routed Mali. "Top to bottom we have such a deep group."

The U.S. seems to get more of a workout scrimmaging in practice than they have in the first three Olympic games.

"That's the beauty of our team," Fowles said. "We have 12 players who can all go out and work, and hustle and score. So when somebody (on the other team) gets hot, you know you have somebody who can come in and bring the energy to stop them."

Donovan plays people for short spurts, only a few minutes at a time.

"Players know it's three, four or five hard minutes and then you're out, so give it your all," Donovan said. "And if you're not giving three, four or five hard minutes, then you don't get back in the rotation.

"This is a deep team. You've got to stay in that rotation or you could get buried on the bench."

Next up for the U.S. is Spain on Friday. Spain beat Czech Republic 74-55 on Wednesday.

"They are getting better each game," Donovan said. "They are athletic, they play with a lot of passion and energy and feed off it. We've played them quite a bit through the years and we know we'll have to play well to move on to the next game."

While the U.S. is cautious about its next opponent, Spain knows it will be hard-pressed to pull off the monumental upset.

"We should be realistic, the U.S. team is strong and they have been winning big," Spain guard Isabel Sanchez said. "We want the U.S. to realize that we deserve their respect, but it has to be earned."

The U.S. already had Mali's respect, and the team from Africa posed for pictures with their U.S. opponents after the game. They wanted something to remember the game by more than just the 56-point loss.

"We're happy to pose for pictures," Taurasi said. "Especially if it's after a victory."

Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.