BEIJING – The U.S. women’s basketball team never has been afraid to get physical, and now its rival is calling the Americans dirty.

World champion Australia took exception to what it deemed rough play Tuesday in a 71-67 U.S. win in the championship game of the FIBA Diamond Ball tournament in Haining, China.

“People are going to try and stop us any way they can,” Australian Lauren Jackson, a center with the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, told The Sports Network on Thursday. “They have to play like that, otherwise we’ll kill them.”

The U.S., winners of the past three Olympic gold medals, and Australia, which captured its first world title in 2006, have a long history, and they could meet in the Beijing Games that begin today.

Australia lost to the U.S. in the Olympic finals in 2000 and 2004 and the semifinals of the 1996 Atlanta Games and the 2002 world championships. The teams didn’t face each other at the 2006 world event, where the U.S. took third after a semifinal defeat against Russia.

In their most recent clash, the teams combined for 40 fouls, one of which left Australian Penny Taylor with a black eye after a nasty collision with Tina Thompson on a screen.

“It was intentional,” Australian Kristi Harrower told News Limited, an Australian news agency. “Elbows were raised. I don’t know if they were trying to make us injured for the Olympic Games.”

Four-time Olympian Lisa Leslie dismissed Australia’s claims.

“I don’t know when Australia and the U.S. have ever met and it has not been physical,” said Leslie, suspended one game last month for her role in a brawl between her Los Angeles Sparks and the Detroit Shock. “I don’t think we left the game feeling like it was any more physical than when we played Russia or Latvia.”

Said returning Olympian Diana Taurasi: “It was physical? It was just another game to us. It was just another 40 minutes of basketball.”

U.S. coach Anne Donovan blamed the referees for the physical play.

“It got very physical, but it certainly was not one-sided,” she said. “Any time you put the best teams in the world against each other, it’s going to get competitive, it’s going to get as physical as the rules allow and as the officials allow.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0256 or brian.gomez@gazettedev.gazette.com. Check out our Olympics blog at gazetteolympics.freedomblogging.com

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