POSTED BY: Eurobasket Center
Brazil can celebrate double gold in basketball as they won both men and women tournaments. In the final game of men tournament Brazil dfid not have any problems with Puerto Rico, getting 21-points victory (86-65). Host team with great support of local fans controlled the entire game. They took early lead 17-5 and at the end of first quarter, they were already 17 points ahead. They kept the lead and even increased it in the last quarter. Puerto Rican team seemed to give up on trying to catch with Brazilian players. Brazil was lead by Joao Paulo Batista (20), Marcelinho Machado (17) and Marcus Vinicius (14). The best for Puerto Rico were Angelo Reyes (14) and Joel Martin Jones (12).
Brazil won everything they could in both men and women tournament.
Puerto Rico achieved probably all they wanted. The most important game for them was the semifinal victory over Argentina after which they advanced to the finals.
In the bronze medal game Uruguay upset Argentina in overtime 99-93. Uruguay was in a raising mode after they won the game against Panama, while Argentina was on aloosing track after they were defeated first by USA and then lost in the semis to Puerto Rico. It was also a sweat revenge for 2-points loss in the group eliminations. This time the game looked similar to the first one, where Argentina took the lead and tried to maintain it thru the whole game. But Uruguay stayed always very close. The breaking point was the end of third quarter, when Uruguay speed up and came as close as just 1 point before the beginning of last period. Argentina managed to increase their lead slightly and just 2 minutes before the end of the game they had a comfortable 6-points lead. Then the real horror started. Many fouls, changes and desperate game from both teams. And here what happened: 3 seconds before the end of the game Argentina was still 3 points ahead. They focused on not allowing Uruguay players to hit 3-pointer. Uruguay captain Nociolas Mazzarino was fouled and got free throws. It would be unrealistic for Uruguay to steal the ball from Argentina and hit another shot in just 3 seconds. Uruguay coach Alberto Espasaddin immediately put on the court power forward Sebastian Izaguirre to increase the chances to rebound the ball. The option was to get 1 point, then miss another shot, rebound the ball and get the basket. Nice theory, which makes sense, but practically never works. But not tonight. It was exactly what happened. Mazzarino hits one shot, misses another, Izaguirre rebounds the ball and ties the game with easy 2-pointer. Argentina was devastated. And usually in such cases the overtime belongs to the team, which tied the game in last seconds. So that period belong to Urguya, which allowed Argentina to score first basket, but then took lead and only increased it till the overtime was over, ending the game 99-93. The top scorers for Uruguay were Fernando Martinez (24), Esteban Batista (16 and
