PARIS — Brazil has been the Cinderella of the Olympic basketball tournament, and it has its greatest chance at defying the odds when it plays Team USA in Tuesday’s quarterfinals.
The Brazilians won their spot in Paris by beating Latvia on home soil in Riga last month. Then Brazil squeezed into the medal round thanks to a tiebreaker and some brilliant 3-point shooting in what turned out to be a deciding game against Japan in Lille, France.
But Brazil’s punishing style and experience bely its underdog status.
“They’re very physical. I think they’re the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the tournament,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr said Sunday. “They’ve got a lot of really good shooters, and they just play hard. They compete play after play, so we’ll have to be ready for their physicality and their shooting, and we need to be on edge and ready for them because they’re not going to back down.”
Brazil has just one current NBA player — Golden State Warriors forward Gui Santos — but it has a number of former NBA players and veterans — five players over age 30 — whose poise has repeatedly served it well.
The Brazilians have six different players averaging eight points or more in the Olympics, and the team averages 13 offensive rebounds per game and is shooting a sizzling 45% on 3-pointers with 11 makes per game during pool play.
That sort of extra possession, high-efficiency formula is the exact sort of style that can lead to upsets. Also, Team USA has given up 16 more offensive rebounds than it has gotten, one of its few weak spots.
“I’ve watched all the games,” LeBron James said. “They’re very dedicated to their offensive and defensive systems.”
Forward Bruno Caboclo, who played for four NBA teams over seven years, scored 33 points for Brazil in the 102-84 victory over Japan.
The Americans are on the opposite side of the bracket from powers Canada, France and defending World Cup champions Germany. Germany had the second-best point differential in pool play and lost to the U.S. by just four points in an exhibition in London last month, when James scored the USA’s last 11 points to secure the win.
If the U.S. advances past Brazil, it will play the winner of Serbia-Australia.
No matter how the bracket plays out, this promises to be a high level of competition toward the gold.
“In the spirit of the Olympics and the marathon/sprint metaphor that I’ve used, now that we’ve been through it, I would call it the 800 meters,” Kerr said. “We’re running really hard, but it’s not the 100 meters.”
