Athens, Greece ? Sheryl Swoopes was in a funk. Her shots kept rimming out, she wasn’t getting many rebounds, she was struggling to find a way to help her team.

With her U.S. basketball team clinging to a two-point lead against pesky Russia, Swoopes got the ball and then heard Dawn Staley shout, “Shoot!”

She did, hitting two key baskets in the waning minutes and complementing them with a big defensive play as the United States advanced to the gold-medal game with a 66-62 semifinal win over Russia on Friday.

“I hadn’t really done much the entire game,” Swoopes said. “I just wanted to be in the right place at the right time.”

Now the Americans are in the place they’ve wanted to be all along — the grand finale with a chance to make it three Olympic titles in a row. They’ll play Australia today, a rematch of the 2000 final in Sydney.

The United States won that game 76-54, hushing a boisterous crowd of Aussies.

“That’s who we want to play, and they want to play us,” Lisa Leslie said, “so let’s have it out.”

That goes double for the Australians, who beat Brazil, 88-75, behind Lauren Jackson’s 26 points and 13 rebounds.

“We’re very happy,” Penny Taylor said. “We know what we’re up against. We know it’s going to be a great task for us.”

Russia's Tatiana Shchegoleva, right, tries to pass around the defense of Americans Lisa Leslie, center, and Sheryl Swoopes. The U.S. won, 66-62, Friday in Athens, Greece, and advanced to the gold-medal game against Australia.

It will be the final Olympic game for the 34-year-old Staley and perhaps for Leslie and Swoopes, though they haven’t said for sure. The three already have two golds and led the resurgence in U.S. women’s basketball internationally after the Americans came away from the 1994 world championships with only a bronze.

“Dawn said before the game, ‘This is going to be my last one and somebody’s standing in my way,'” Swoopes said.

Russia put up by far the sternest challenge to a U.S. team that had won its previous six games by an average of 29 points.

The Russians limited the Americans’ inside game with their size and didn’t buckle under the pressure defense that had rattled so many previous opponents. Turnovers were troublesome; Leslie, Yolanda Griffith and Tamika Catchings were on the verge of serious foul trouble and Russia just wouldn’t go away.

Enter Swoopes, who hadn’t made a basket in the game.

With her team ahead just 60-58, she buried a jumper from the left wing with 3:54 remaining, barely beating the shot clock. She deflected a Russian shot at the other end, then scored again, hitting a 10-footer from the left baseline to make it 64-58 with 3:15 left.

“That is the golden player,” Staley said. “We know she’ll shine at the end of the game.”