BEIJING – Fresh legs. The USA women’s basketball team has them right now.

How odd that it’s true for women who are used to playing back-to-back seasons in the WNBA and abroad during their peak years as basketball stars.

Confined in one place and playing in one venue here at the Beijing Olympics is allowing the U.S. women, even while they chase a fourth straight Olympic gold medal, to both catch their breaths and beat up on teams like they did late Wednesday night.

Because the real competition is on the other side of the bracket with the Russians and the Aussies in Beijing, the U.S. simply handled Pool B business by beating Mali, 97-41, at the Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium.

Mali actually led 8-7 early after draining a couple of 3s, forcing U.S. head coach Anne Donovan to call a timeout with 5:34 left in the first quarter.

It was a brief blip. The U.S. doubled up the Malians by the end of the quarter, 24-12.

The win, during which veteran Lisa Leslie scored 10 of her 16 points to lead five U.S. players in double-figures, came a day after the Americans (3-0) took a rare day off.

“It actually does feel like there’s more downtime,” USA guard Sue Bird said. “Even on days we don’t play, we’re in our hotel. We don’t have to go that far unless we want to see other events. We can pick and choose what we want to do. It is nice.”

The year is jam-packed with activity whether the best American players are competing for the U.S. or not. Many U.S. players play overseas during the winter.

Bird and USA teammates Diana Taurasi and Tina Thompson helped Spartak Moscow Region win a second straight Euroleague title this winter before the WNBA season started in May.

USA forward Candace Parker went from winning an NCAA title at Tennessee to being the No. 1 WNBA draft pick, to playing for the Los Angeles Sparks, then onto these Olympics while the WNBA takes a break.

The WNBA stopped play for the Olympics on Aug. 2. Everyone goes back to her day job on Sept. 1.

The WNBA playoffs will run as late as mid-October. Euroleague training camps begin soon thereafter.

Thompson wouldn’t call practicing and playing every other day during an Oympic competition “downtime,” but finds the confines of an Olympics limit distractions and gives players time to connect.

“We do have time in the hotel, kind of hanging out with one another,” Thompson said. “I don’t think we do that so much during the WNBA season.”

They also have time to sleep, a lot, if they care to. Parker slept until 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday before relaxing further with a massage, then heading off to watch the U.S. men beat Angola.

“Oh,” Parker said, “It felt so good.”

Bird slept until 3 p.m. – “Sleep is kind of important to us,” she said – then walked over to the nearby mall to hang out with friends at TGI Friday’s to watch the men’s game.

“There are no distractions at the Olympics,” said Bird, who won a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Games. “There’s no travel. You’re worried about what other teams are doing, during the season, it’s like if that team loses and this team wins, we’ll move up. But here, we’re more like, ‘As long as we take care of business, we know we’ll be a No. 1 seed and play the No. 4 on the other side.’

“It’s just one day at a time here.”