Brazil punishes China in Pre-Olympics show

BrazilBrazil closed its preparations for the 2016 Olympics with a cruising home win over China, prevailing 83-69 in a good warm up performance. If these two teams meet in the Games, they can only do so in the knock out phase as both are pitted in different groups. If it comes to a knock out encounter, Brazil will certainly be carrying the advantage.

Not only is the country the home nation of the Rio 2016 Olympics, but this game showed that the South Americans had too much for China.

Indeed, holding the home court this summer will give the team confidence of picking up the gold in the Olympics tournament, ignoring the USA sized elephant in the room.

Brazil vs. China, 83-69

While the hosts ultimately eased to success, China actually started in stellar form and looked too good for a bewildered Brazil. The Asian giant swept to a commanding 25-15 lead through ten minutes and was simply in command. A stunned home team duly responded in the second quarter, using a 24-18 run to pull to within three points through the long break. As the buzzer sounded for the interval, China led 39-42.

Brazil had the momentum though and in the third act drove it home by scoring another 21 points in the third act. More impressively, the defence worked well and stopped the Chinese at 10 points for a commanding 60-52 lead through thirty minutes. The guest had collapsed and Brazil had pounced, sealing the win in the fourth quarter with another 23 points.

A well rounded Brazil attack saw Vitor Benite score 13 points, Leandro Barbosa 10 points, and Cristiano Felicio 10 points.

If the Chinese had backed up Yi Jianlian’s 21 points and Zhai Xiaochuan’s 18 points then they probably would have won. As it was the guests could not maintain a breakneck first quarter and lost every frame after.

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