By Pete Thamel

c.2008 New York Times News Service

BEIJING — The fans here have been unfailingly polite to the U.S. basketball teams, going so far as to cheer for them nearly as ardently as they do their own team.

But as the U.S. women’s basketball team throttled the Chinese, 108-63, on Monday night at the Olympic Basketball Gymnasium, an age-old question of international Olympic relations arose.

Leading by 33-11 at the end of the first quarter and by 61-27 at halftime, the Americans had to confront the conundrum of how to manage the blowout and keep with the Olympic spirit. Clearly, the worst player on the American roster would be the best player on China’s team.

Compounding the difficulty for the Americans was the fact that arguably their two most talented players, Candace Parker and Sylvia Fowles, come off the bench.

“It’s a good problem to have,” guard Diana Taurasi said.

Tina Thompson led all scorers with 27 points and Fowles continued her eye-opening international play with 18 points and eight rebounds.

“They were just way too good for us,” Chinese coach Tom Maher said. “We’re playing someone who has us outmatched, you can’t analyze it statistically.”

To the credit of the Chinese crowd, they roared with approval, gasped and waved flags at every basket. They chanted “China” throughout the second half, even as the baskets the Chinese scored were increasingly irrelevant.

“They went on a 7-0 run and I looked up and it was 37,” Taurasi said of the U.S. lead, laughing because the reaction of the crowd made the advantage feel smaller.

The United States did not press after halftime. But when your bench players are still among the best in the world, there is really no easy way to take pity on an overmatched opponent.

It is a problem that the U.S. women are going to face again this week. They next play Mali, which is considered the weakest team in the tournament, on Wednesday. After that is a game with Spain, which lost to China in its opening game. That is followed by New Zealand, which is one of the weaker teams.

“We’re not showing everything, so that does concern me a little bit,” U.S. coach Anne Donovan said. “At the same time, we’ve been tested for two years.”

The teams that the United States has to be most concerned with, Australia and Russia, will not appear until the medal round. The trick will be to stay sharp for those games while playing teams with inferior talent. Donovan said managing the game could be difficult; she looked at the statistic sheet after the third quarter and saw that the star center Lisa Leslie had played just 11 minutes.

“I don’t fear these players losing their hunger and their focus with the lopsided wins,” Donovan said. “In the past, we’ve been concerned about that as a staff. In 2004, we were very concerned about that.”