“But we’ve stayed together, stayed in our bubble and stayed prepared and ready.”

The Opals didn’t reach a 25-point lead until George made a fadeaway and was fouled with 28 seconds to play, but once they reached that margin they held on.

A neutral fan watching the first half would have thought Puerto Rico were fighting to stay in the tournament and the Opals getting ready to go home as Puerto Rico took an 8-0 lead by shooting freely and attacking with aggression.

Defensively the Opals couldn’t find regular stops while their starters looked dysfunctional until Tolo, O’Hea and Sara Blicavs were thrown on.

O’Hea’s shooting and Tolo’s play around the basket saw them catch up but they still trailed 24-22 at quarter-time.

Tolo kept cutting and scoring in the second term but the Opals couldn’t summon the right tempo and the right level of defensive pressure to force the Puerto Ricans to do something more than shoot from outside.

Tessa Lavey gave the Opals a jolt off the bench as they led 45-44 at half-time but it meant little considering a team that was averaging just over 50 points per game was already there.

“I basically said [at half-time] this game comes down to here,” Opals coach Sandy Brondello said, pointing to her heart.

“How bad do we want it? We had to play with some heart, keep the tempo up and pound the ball inside.

“The credit goes to the girls, they responded the right way and we found a way to win.”

Australia had to speed up in the third term and they went on a 12-4 run coming out of the main break but, despite tiring, Puerto Rico kept fighting and refused to give the Opals any easy scores.

Ezi Magbegor found room to operate inside but while the lead started to grow, time began running down. Puerto Rico kept the ball in place and rarely committed turnovers.

But fatigue was kicking in and in the Opals burst out to a 16-point lead in the final minutes of the quarter with Rebecca Allen’s three topping off the run.

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The Opals pushed the lead to 20 but were frustrated by their own misses and Gwathmey’s shooting as the former WNBA forward shot from outside and her teammates worked down the clock trying to limit the chances for the lead to grow.

Then George, Tolo and O’Hea took over.

Bring on the quarter-finals.

Women’s basketball quarter-finals on Wednesday: Australia v USA, China v Serbia, Belgium v Japan and Spain v France.