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Men's basketball: U.S., Russia, Spain into quarterfinals

Xinhua, August 3, 2012

• Defending champions the United States, Russia and Spain remained unbeaten and booked quarterfinal berths of the men's basketball at London Olympics after Thursday's preliminary round matches, while China and Tunisia still waited for their first win.

  Trailing by two points with four seconds to the end, Vitaliy Fridzon hit a fade-away three-pointer to save Russia from suffering their first loss in London. The thrilling 75-74 win over Brazil made Russia become the first team to qualify for the quarterfinals with an unbeaten 3-0 record.

  The scintillating preliminary round duel between unbeaten teams came down to a seesaw battle over the final seconds and dropped Brazil to 2-1 in the chase for quarterfinal seedings in Group B.

  Andrei Kirilenko led Russia with 19 points, Timofey Mozgov had 18 and Alexey Shved scored 17. Leandro Barbosa led the way for Brazil with 16 points.

  Spain, runners-up of last three Games, held off a late charge from host Britain for a 79-78 win. The Spaniards stretched their lead to 60-48 entering the fourth quarter but Loul Deng sparked a stunning British rally. The host made a 9-2 run to pull within 68-65 on Pops Mensah-Bonsu's inside jump with 3 minutes 18 seconds remaining.

  Pau Gasol made in two free throws and his brother Marc Gasol made another to give Spain a 71-65 advantage but Joel Freeland scored four points in straight with one minute 25 seconds remaining to pull Britain within two points at 71-69 behind.

  But turnovers by Deng and Mensah-Bonsu led to four points for Spain. Then Dan Clark answered for Britain by hitting a three-pointer to cut Spain's edge to 75-72 and, after Calderon sank two free throws with 25 seconds remaining, Nate Reinking's 3-pointer for Britain made it 77-75.

  Calderon made two more free throws with 17 seconds remaining, but Britain responded yet again, centre Mensah-Bonsu sinking a 3-pointer with seven seconds remaining leaving them just a point behind.

  Calderon took the inbounds pass for Spain and raced around the backcourt, eluding British players desperate to foul him and stop the clock.The Spaniards survived an epic scare.

  The United States scored 100 points by the the middle of the third quarter in their 156-73 victory over Nigeria. Carmelo Anthony scored 37 points, which set the American Olympic mark for points in a game. The US team also set the Olympic record for points in a game and points in a half. When Andre Iguodala hit a 3-pointer with 4:37 left, the Americans had surpassed the previous Olympic record of 138 points set by Brazil against Egypt in 1988.

  Kobe Bryant scored 14 of his 16 points in the first quarter. Russell Westbrook had 21 and Kevin Durant 14 for the US team., which will play Lithuania on Saturday.

  China's hope of reaching the playoff took a double blow with NBA player Yi Jianlian suffering a right knee injury and the 81-61 loss to Australia. The defeat put China in position to miss the quarterfinals if the Aussies defeat Britain on Saturday to clinch a berth.

  Tony Parker scored 27 points and Nicolas Batum added 21 to lead France to an 82-74 victory over Lithuania. France improved to 2-1 after its opening match loss to the U.S. team and now ranked third in Group A while Tunisia put a scare into heavyweight Argentina by leading 28-14 after the first quarter. Argentina, the 2004 gold-medallists, outscored Tunisia by 15 points in the third quarter to win at 92-69.

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