Olympics-Basketball 3x3-Champion US women end victory drought, men still winless

By Benjamin Mallet

PARIS (Reuters) - Reigning champions the United States finally got a win on the board in their fourth game of the women's 3x3 basketball pool stage at the Paris Olympics on Thursday with a 17-11 victory over Spain.

After suffering a third consecutive defeat in a 17-15 loss to Australia earlier in the day, the U.S. used their size advantage to make scoring drives and impose tight defence on Spain.

"It was a great game for our team. All it takes is one win sometimes to get going," said Hailey Van Lith. "So hopefully that was the igniter to our fire."

Three-times Olympian Kevin Durant was at the Australia game, while four-times NBA champion LeBron James and swimmer Katie Ledecky, owner of 13 Olympic medals, were courtside to support their compatriots for the Spain game.

"That is awesome," Van Lith said of the big name support. "They ask us how our team is doing. They talk to us. They care how we are doing."

"They have given us a little (advice) about handling the pressure. They have shared some good advice about wearing the USA on your chest."

By contrast, the U.S men suffered two more defeats, 20-18 to Lithuania and 21-19 to Tokyo champions Latvia, who remain the only unbeaten 3x3 team in Paris at the end of day three.

The U.S. were hampered by the absence of Jimmer Fredette, who has a left leg injury and whose availability going forward will be evaluated on a game-by-game basis.

Both U.S. teams remain rooted to the bottom of the pool standings with their prospects of qualifying directly for the semi-finals looking bleak.

In the pool stage, the teams play a round robin. The top two from the pool go straight to the semi-finals and the next four teams play off for the other two spots in the last four.

Latvia had earlier pulled off a swift 22-8 victory over China to top the men's pool.

Top-ranked Serbia beat the Netherlands 21-19 when Strahinja Stojacic ended the contest with an extraordinary long-range two-pointer. They also defeated France 19-16 a few hours later in a game interrupted by a rain storm.

In other women's matches, Germany inflicted a first loss on Canada by 19-15 with a fine collective effort, and also beat Azerbaijan 12-8 in the evening. Canada got back to winning ways in the night session with a 13-9 victory on hosts France.

(Reporting by Benjamin Mallet; Editing by Toby Davis and Bill Berkrot)