RIO DE JANEIRO — That’s 47 consecutive Olympic victories and counting.

The United States’ senior women’s basketball team is the closest thing our country has to a dynasty. They have won five consecutive gold medals, dating back to 1996; and appear to be steaming toward a sixth.

Team USA is not just beating the competition. They are eviscerating it. The American women struggled to contain Japan’s non stop, high octane offense in the first half, then recovered to blow away the Asian champions, 110-64, here Tuesday in the quarterfinals of this Olympic tournament Tuesday at Carioca Arena I. Life got easier for the United States, who will play France Thursday in the semi-finals, after Serbia upset dangerous Australia in its quarterfinal game.

By then, we should know how seriously starting point guard Sue Bird is hurt. Bird left the game just before halftime after she injured her left knee while chasing down a Japanese player and did not return.

“Nothing really happened,” Bird said of the play. “I just felt the pop and anytime you feel that, it’s a little alarming. So going just to have to get it evaluated afterwards and see what’s up. Truth I really have nothing to tell you. It happened so fast like. Is it possible I stepped on her shoe or she stepped on mine? I don’t really remember but yeah it felt funny.”

U.S. coach Geno Auriemma said that the U.S. medical staff would evaluate the injury Wednesday. “There’s no way of knowing anything right now,” he said. “I’m sure Sue’s bummed out about it as you can imagine. Let’s just wait and see.”

A little drama is good for the soul but not when it involves your best play maker.

“We came into the game knowing that it was going to be almost impossible to keep them from getting open shots, that’s how good they are,” Auriemma said. “Their offense is as good as anything I’ve ever seen in terms of how quickly they move the ball, and how quickly they move themselves. I mean, they play a such a fast pace. So, we had like four or five different things that we wanted to do, and we tried a couple of them in the first half, and they didn’t go over so great and so at halftime we settled on one thing that we wanted to do defensively.”

Japan was the first team in this competition to challenge the Americans for a half. The Japanese constantly pushed the pace, beating Team USA up the floor with their speed and pumping in 7-of-11 threes. When forward Ramu Tokashiki — who plays for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm — shook free from her defender for an easy backdoor layup to get Japan within 48-46, it brought a loud contingent of Japanese fans to their feet.

That’s as close as they would get.

The U.S. scored the final eight points of the half with the last four coming from Seimone Augustus, which brought cheers from Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and and several other members of the U.S. men’s basketball team in attendance. The Americans, who are averaging 102.4 points and won their five group games by an average of 40.8 points, had just too much offensive firepower and eclipsed the 100-point mark for the fifth time in six games, outscoring Japan 54-18 in the second half.

In the process, they completely stifled Japan’s outstanding guard Mika Kurihara, who scored all 12 of her points from behind the arc in the first half.

“In the second half they didn’t let me breathe, I couldn’t get the ball,” she said. “In the first half, we played Japanese basketball and we made the Americans sweat a little bit. Coming into the game, we knew they are huge. We had a battle in the paint and we had to play our basketball.. run and run. We had confidence going into the game.”

Japan is fun to watch. But the United States’ defense is a lethal weapon.

“We were unbelievable in the second half,” Auriemma said. “Remember, we were up 10. They cut it to four in the first three minutes, so in the last 17 minutes of the game, was pretty amazing. That was pretty amazing brand of basketball in that 17 minutes against a really, really good team.”

For the record, Team USA limited the Japanese to just 18 points in a suffocating second half that was reminiscent of the second quarter of the Canadian blowout when the Americans held Canada to just one field goal.

Seven U.S. players reached double-figure scoring, led by 19 points from Diana Tarausi and 19 points from Moore, who shot 3-of-3 from 3-point to tie the U.S. women’s Olympic single-game three-point percentage record. As a team, the USA knocked down 11 threes to set a U.S. women’s Olympic game record for 3-pointers made.

“I think it’s just a matter of us wearing teams down,” Moore said. “We play at a high level. We try to play at a high level for 40 minutes. It’s not going to happen perfectly. We just tried to do our best to stay with our game plan and be aggressive, and our defense really kick started our offense in the second half where we were able to get a lot of stops in a row and stifling runs that we were trying to make.”

The Americans who have played near perfect basketball here and their performances apparently have made an impression on Japan, which is making its first Olympic appearance since 2004 and will host the summer games in 2020. The Japanese players posed for a team picture with the U.S. after the blowout — the second straight opponent to get a post game souvenir with the Americans. China took a photo after their game against the Americans in pool play. It’s reminiscent of how opponents reacted to the Dream Team at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

“It was a sign of respect,” Kurihara said. “They said some good things about us and respected what we did. They said we are a tough team to guard. It was really nice for them to get together and take a picture with us.”