The Brazilian national team got off to a blistering start in today’s match against China. China was left fighting from behind for the whole game in a 98-59 smashing at the hands of San Antonio Spurs forward Tiago Splitter and Brazil.
At the end of the first quarter, the Brazilians had a 25-9 lead. They tried to bounce back in the second quarter, but their early woes were too much to overcome as Brazil headed to the locker room up 42-21.
Splitter contributed eight first quarter points, including one raucous throwdown.
During the second quarter, Brazil went on a 11-2 run with China going through long droughts before they would get back on the board.
Splitter scored four points in the third before he’d come out of the game for good. The rest of Brazil’s supporting cast took over where Splitter left off, with Anderson Varejao, Marcelinho Huertas and Leandro Barbosa taking the scoring load and outscoring China by 11 points.
Marquinhos Vieira came off the bench to score eight points in the fourth, while Varejao added six.
Although China has their share of bigs, most notably being Yi Jianlian and former NBA player Wang Zhizhi, Splitter seemed to be too big a challenge for anyone China put in front of him. He was very active on both ends of the floor, and managed to make an impact in only 13 minutes of playing time.
Splitter finished with 12 points, four rebounds, one steal and one blocked shot. While he had better numbers in more minutes against Great Britain, I would consider this Splitter’s best overall game yet. Through four games, he is averaging 12 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.
With the win, Brazil is now second in Group B behind the undefeated team from Russia.
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