Olympics Day Three: Brazil Suffers Another Heartbreaker

RELATED CONTENT

Beijing 2008 Homepage StormTracker blog: More Olympic Coverage Get Storm Headlines!

Jekabsone-Zogota's bucket capped a wild final minute which saw Brazil and Latvia trade the lead four times. Matching three-pointers by Ieva Kublina and Karen Rocha left Brazil up one with 7.5 seconds to play, which proved more than enough time for Jekabsone-Zogota. Brazil got a final look at the bucket, but veteran Adriana Moises Pinto could not connect in heavy traffic near the free-throw line.

"It's very hard to lose a game like this because we played tough and we gave our hearts out," Moises Pinto told FIBA.com.

Brazil has led in the final minute of two of its three games in the Olympics thus far, playing Australia tough in the other matchup. However, the Brazilians have nothing to show for it after surrendering the lead late and losing to South Korea in overtime in their opener and dropping this tightly-contested matchup with South Korea. With two games left to play against undefeated Russia and Belarus, Brazil likely has no margin for error if it is to reach the medal rounds.

"It's difficult, almost impossible, but we have to do our part," said Brazilian Head Coach Paulo Bassul. "It's two games, two difficult games. It's a real challenge to recuperate, but we will try to do that."

Storm center Kelly Santos delivered another solid effort in the middle for Brazil, scoring 15 points and grabbing nine rebounds. Through three games, Santos ranks fifth amongst Olympians in both scoring at 16.3 points per game and rebounding at 8.3 boards. Her 21 free throws are tied for the most of any player in these games. Ega Zakrzeski made it a one-two punch up front with 16 points and nine boards and Brazil was a lights-out 9-of-15 from three-point range. The Brazilians led most of the way after going up 23-14 in the first quarter.

However, Brazil could not contain Jekabsone-Zogota, who after an impressive series of games in the FIBA Diamond Ball warm-up tournament had struggled in the Olympics. Not so on this night. The talented Latvian guard hit inside and out on her way to 25 points, handing out five assists and saving her biggest score for last.

Wednesday's win was another laugher for Sue Bird and the USA. Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images

Both sides left the USA's 97-41 victory over Mali Wednesday with reasons to feel good. For the African champs, who would have been hopelessly overmatched against the U.S. even had star forward Hamchetou Maiga-Bä not suffered an ankle injury that brought her Olympics to an early end, not being entirely run off the floor in the first half was an impressive accomplishment. USA Head Coach Anne Donovan could not have been entirely pleased with her team's defensive effort during the first half, when Mali scored 28 points, and after halftime the Americans locked down and allowed just 13 points over the final 20 minutes.

"We continue to stress our defense and really working hard on that end of the floor," said Donovan. "Once again, forcing the number of turnovers that we do makes us happy as a team."

The highpoint for Mali came early, when the team used an 8-0 run to take a short-lived one-point lead and force Donovan to take timeout. The USA quickly regained control and went up as many as 27 in the second quarter before Mali closed the first half with an 11-7 spurt on the strength of a trio of three-pointers.

Mali had some occasional success from beyond the arc, making six three-pointers. Venturing inside the line proved more challenging, as the U.S. limited Mali to an unthinkable 19.5 percent on two-point attempts. The USA also came up with 12 steals and forced 29 turnovers in the dominant defensive effort.

Lisa Leslie paced a balanced American scoring effort with a perfect game from the field. Leslie made all seven of her field-goal attempts and scored a game-high 16 points. Seimone Augustus (12) and Candace Parker, Cappie Pondexter and Tina Thompson (10 apiece) joined Leslie in double-figures, while Storm guard Sue Bird finished a point shy. Bird scored an Olympics-high nine points and dished out four assists in 21 minutes of action, though she finally committed her first turnover in Beijing.

"We knew coming in that the score might not be one of the closest we have ever been in," Bird said, "so we wanted to work on some things for ourselves. No matter who our opponent is, we always want to do that. That was kind of the mindset going in."

Things will get more challenging for the U.S. women, winners of their first three games by a combined 141 points, with Friday's tilt against Spain, at 2-1 tied for second place in Group B.

AUSTRALIA 90, SOUTH KOREA 62

Having started the Olympics with a pair of uneven performances in comfortable wins, the Australian Defence Force Opals looked like World Champions in a 90-62 rout of South Korea. A big reason why was that Penny Taylor, MVP of the 2006 World Championships, broke out of a mini-shooting slump. Taylor scored 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting, adding seven rebounds, four assists and three steals in far and away her best performance thus far.

Taylor's performance helped anchor a strong effort from the Australian front line, with Suzy Batkovic posting her second double-double of the Olympics with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Lauren Jackson rounded out the terrific trio with 16 points, six rebounds and three assists.

Jackson still apparently isn't pleased with her performance, telling Reuters, "I've been playing like crap," Jackson told Reuters. "Every game is about playing better and I need to get better personally and get the confidence in my game back. But I've got great teammates."

Even without a Jackson at her peak, the Opals shot 53.1 percent from the field and 63.8 percent on two-pointers. They handed out 21 assists and crushed the Koreans on the glass 44-25. Give South Korea credit for hanging on, aided by incredible 6-for-7 three-point shooting by Beon Yeonha, who scored 20 points. However, the Opals were simply too strong.

ELSEWHERE ...

Russia 71, Belarus 65 - Another day, another Russian victory by a close margin. Ho hum. Belarus got within four twice in the last minute before Russia held on to win a defensive battle that saw Russia shoot 38.7 percent and Belarus 32.4 percent from the field.

Spain 74, Czech Republic 55 - The Czechs led 21-15 after one quarter and trailed by only a point at halftime, but Spain put together a brilliant third quarter, outscoring the Czech Republic 30-11 to put the game away. Anna Montanana led Spain with 20 points, and the Spanish side had to be encouraged by forward Amaya Valdemoro having her best game of the Olympics, scoring 13 points on 5-of-11 shooting and handing out four assists. The Czech Republic could not find three-point range, shooting 4-of-21 (19.0 percent) from downtown.

China 80, New Zealand 63 - Outside of being drubbed by the USA, it has been a good Olympics for the hosts, who improved to 2-1 with an easy win over New Zealand. With a game against Mali still on the schedule, China is surely through to the quarterfinals. Now the question for the Chinese is placement. A win over the Czech Republic on Sunday would secure second place in Group B. Second place in Group B means facing the third-place finisher in Group A (presumably Belarus, Korea or Latvia), while the third- and fourth-place finishers will have to play either Australia or Russia in the quarterfinals, a much, much more challenging matchup. If the Czech Republic beats China and other results go to form, there would be a three-way tie for second in Group B with all three teams having beaten each other head-to-head.

As for this game, China got a huge effort from veteran center Nan Chen, who scored 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting and pulled down 17 rebounds. New Zealand had but 29 boards as a team. Stanford post Jillian Harmon put together another solid game with 14 points and eight boards.