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Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Writer
PARIS — Brazil has been the Cinderella of the Olympic basketball tournament this summer and now gets their greatest chance at defying the odds against 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 this week thanks to a tiebreaker and some brilliant 3-point shooting in what turned out to be a deciding game against Japan last week 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 they have a number of former NBA players and veterans — five players over age 30 — whose poise has repeatedly served them well this summer.
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 they’ve gotten themselves, one of their 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 victory over Japan.
The Americans are on the opposite side of the bracket than powers Canada, Germany and France. Germany, the defending World Cup champions, had the second-best point differential in pool play and lost to the U.S. by just four points in a 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, they’d 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 (like running) the 800 meters,” Kerr said. “We’re running really hard, but it’s not the 100 meters.”