US trumps Brazil in men's wheelchair basketball
8/9/2008 18:00
Paul Schulte scored 18 out of his 20 points in the first half, helping US
crush Brazil 87-41 to win its second pool B match in the men's wheelchair
basketball of the Beijing Paralympics at the USTB Gymnasium today.
Silver
medallist in Sydney 2000 Schulte was perfect beyond the arc scoring all of his
four attemps before the main break as the United States rallied to a 39-23
win.
Jeff Glasbrenner had 13 points and Joe Chambers added 11 points for the
United States.
"You know, we may be good but there are many good teams. We
just have to be ready every single day. You can't be over-confident," said
Schulte, the guard of US team.
"We were able to beat them by a large margin.
But to other teams I would give a warning about Brazil. They are an experienced
team who shouldn't be taken lightly."
"If we allow them to get too hot, it's
then a lot harder to stop them. So we had to get our lead early in the first
quarter to keep them from getting too hot."
On the contrary, Brazil's top
players, Erick Silva and Irio Nunes combined for only nine points in the half
after combining for 49 points yesterday's match against Australia.
The
Brazilians suffered from their opponent's full-court defensive pressure, led by
Matt Scott, the best defender in the world, and the South Americans struggled to
take open shots, especially in the third quarter, when they stayed scoreless
during the first nine minutes.
Paul Jackson, one of the United States'
assistant coaches, was showing different numbers to the players to change their
defence's strategy on every Brazil's attack.
The US took profit from their
steals and defensive rebounds to score 22 points from turnovers.
"That was
exciting. Anytime you put an international team together it's good. We have a
lot of offence and our team is known for defence and we showed it," said US
forward Scott.
"We came out with a lot of focus and high energy. I think
though we settled too much in the second quarter, but we picked it back up in
the third.
"In the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games, we finished seventh and in
the 2006 World Championships we took the silver. We're getting better year by
year and day by day," added he.
The US team will next play Britain on their
third match, while Brazil will meet Israel. Both matches will be played at the
National Indoor Stadium tomorrow.
Xinhua
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